Going Back
by JackmanB
Summary: Joshua, a veteran Pokémon Trainer in Sinnoh, has finally earned the right to challenge the last obstacle before the Pokémon League: Victory Road. Many a Trainer has attempted and failed the cave before him; will his dreams be crushed, or will he succeed?
1. Chapter 1

Hey, new readers! I'm not usually too big on the headers and footers, but I just wanted to say that, if you take the time to read this story, _please _visit my profile if you haven't. It basically says that, even if you don't like Going Back, please drop a review, and mention if you'd like to see any more of it. Lots of people have been subscribing to my profile and to Going Back (even though it's finished), so I'll just assume they liked it and would want to see more, but it's always better to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. It'd mean a lot to me if you dropped a line!  
Without further ado, enjoy the story!

**Going Back**

It had taken Joshua the better part of two years, but he did it. Finally, after so much blood, sweat and tears, he finally had all eight badges in his Trainer case. He was already halfway down Route 223 when he really began to think back on all his hardships to come this far. The miles he walked; the numerous times he slept on the dirt, usually in the cold, face up. His sleeping bag had long since been torn to shreds in the middle of a particularly nasty thunderstorm, and he was usually so low on funds that he'd opt for food and assorted medicines before buying something like a sleeping bag. He could've just as easily flown back home to Twinleaf Town and ask mom for some new supplies or money, but he never wanted to. Most other Trainers would give up before getting as far as he had. He was now eligible to challenge the Elite Four. This was his 'coming of age' task, and he didn't want to rely on his parents' help for things that weren't life-threateningly urgent.

He was giving too much credit to himself, though. He did the walking, he did the challenging, he did the raising, he was the one with the responsibility, but it was really his team that did all the hard work. He couldn't have gotten all those badges by fighting the battles himself. That's just a silly thought. It was his hearty, loyal team of six that did their very best to see their Master's dream through.

He warmed to the thought. Communication was difficult with his team, which wasn't unusual, but it didn't take a lot to convince him that they were all in it together, and that if he wanted something done, they'd see it through with all their power. Back when he only had four badges, he paid frequent visits to Dr. Footsteps on Route 213. Some of his team didn't seem especially comfortable with the idea of being ripped from their nice, comfy homes in familiar surroundings to be bumming around with some human they never saw before, being put in gladiatorial combat for his own amusement, and frequently receiving numerous cuts and bruises from particularly even or outmatched battles (all except for his Turtwig, now Torterra, which he received at the beginning of his epic journey. He never understood why, but it never wavered in the slightest when his Master told him to attack that Staravia with Grass Knot or fight a Fire-type – which was especially confusing since, as an Academy graduate, Joshua would've known the severe handicap. Thankfully, he had adopted more…technical strategies to his fights since then). It was an unwritten rule that if a Pokémon honest-to-goodness did not like what it was doing or whom it was doing it for, then a respectable Trainer would release it where they found it. But all six of his permanent team had grown incredibly attached to their Master, and likewise himself to them, over time. Flareon would never hesitate to push a precariously placed boulder that was in their way; if Joshua needed to be in the opposite side of Sinnoh right now, Honchkrow would gladly give him a lift; if there was a body of water that stood between where they were and where they were going, Golduck wouldn't need to be asked to ferry him to the other side, like she was now.

It was a huge trip for him, to reminisce about his journey since day one. He graduated from the Academy at 16, having started a year later than is usual for other kids. From the very first gym in Oreburgh, facing down Roark and his little menace of a Cranidos with only Turtwig, Starly and Shinx, to outdoing Crasher Wake's terribly powerful Floatzel with his own Psyduck (and pulling out an amazing critical hit in the most tense part of the entire battle), to witnessing Riolu hatching out of its cramped little egg in Celestic Town before getting his Mine Badge, to finally putting Volkner in his place in Sunyshore City and setting out for the final hurdle. It was difficult to believe that he and his friends did all that by themselves. Then again, his disbelief had shattered long ago when he pushed himself past the blizzard on Route 217.

And now, two years after starting his journey, Joshua could see the hulking mountain holding the twisting and turning Victory Road rise menacingly over the horizon. He was more than ready to challenge it. His reminiscing ended when he felt himself dragged upwards, as Golduck effortlessly scaled the only waterfall remaining between them and Victory Road. He gripped the blue duck's shoulders tightly, and a few seconds later he was facing the front door of the last Poké Centre in Sinnoh.

"Thanks, Golduck," Joshua said, zapping the happy Golduck back into her Poké Ball. Most Trainers made it a point to talk to their Pokémon in a casual way. After all, they were sentient creatures, weren't they? They understood the basics of speech well enough (although speaking it themselves was a little impossible). It couldn't hurt to be a little sociable with the things he's sending into fights for his own goals. He would always let his Pokémon out of their casings at morning, noon and at the end of the day for regular meals and general exercise, and would always think of a story to tell them before sending them to sleep. He couldn't understand a word of any of their replies, naturally (thankfully they didn't talk much directly to him, since it was just awkward for everybody) but it was just a part of being sociable. A family, as he sometimes liked to call them to boost camaraderie, works best if they were familiar with each other, and what better way than to share campfire stories?

It was lucky that they had gotten to the Poké Centre when they did: the sun was just setting over the horizon, and in a matter of minutes the only light in the sky would be from the moon and the stars. Poké Centres usually had a few spare rooms for the odd wandering Trainer to spend the night in, and since this Poké Centre was the only checkpoint between Sunyshore City and the entrance to Victory Road, it was built slightly larger to accommodate more Trainers.

Joshua stepped past the sliding glass door to meet the eyes of the lovely nurse sitting behind the counter. It wasn't unusual for the Poké Centres to consist of only a single active female nurse, though they changed shifts with other nurses regularly. He removed each of the six Poké Balls from his waist and laid them in a special carrying case for easier transport, courtesy of each Poké Centre. "Some minor healing, please," he said in a casual tone. He'd done this hundreds of times before. "To make up for the trip from Sunyshore. Some of those swimmer Trainers are pretty spry out there."

The nurse giggled politely at the comment and took the case behind the counter, towards a machine usually located just to the side of the nurse's seat. "They're nothing compared to what you're going to see in Victory Road, let alone the Elite Four." She wasn't trying to dissuade him from going any farther – if Joshua hadn't realized this simple truth by now, he'd have a difficult time even getting past Aaron of the Elite Four. "You'll be staying for the night, right?"

"Yeah. We're going to leave first thing tomorrow morning to get our way through the cave."

The nurse placed all six Poké Balls in her incubator-like machine and switched the device on. A low hum filled the room. "You all set for the trip? Got enough food and medicine for your whole team?"

"I blew every last cent I had on Hyper Potions, Revives, and the usual antidotes for the usual ailments," Joshua replied. "I spent maybe a week harvesting berries and making Poffins. And just to be safe, I stopped by the department store in Veilstone and stocked up on all sorts of drinks. I think I'm about as ready as I'm ever going to be."

She smiled at him and resumed her deskwork that she had laid out behind the counter for herself. There was always a small waiting area for Trainers to relax in while their Pokémon healed in the incubators, consisting of some couches and chairs, with a single coffee table. Trainers could lounge a little while with their fellow dreamers and talk about their latest exploits and accomplishments, or give out advice to others less experienced in what they might be facing next. There was a middle-aged, balding man sitting on one chair with a young, female – by the looks of her clothes, an Ace – Trainer sitting on the couch closest to the man. Not unfamiliar with social gatherings exactly like this one, Joshua took a seat next to the young Trainer.

"…of Trainers in the lower levels are really tough," Joshua heard the girl say. "My Infernape didn't stand much of a chance against so many Water-types. But I know what to expect now, and I can't wait to go again!"

"It wasn't called Victory Road for no reason, lass," the man replied. "It'll be a hell of a statement of your abilities as a Trainer just to make it through that place by yourself. And on your first try! I only know of a handful of people that made it through on their first run."

"Excuse me," interrupted Joshua, shifting his position on the couch to stay in the view of both his fellow Trainers at once. "Tomorrow would be my first time through Victory Road. Got any advice for a rookie?"

"Kid," the man began, "if you beat Volkner, you're no rookie. The cave is large and pretty spooky for first timers, but I've never seen anyone _not _make it through if they were just determined enough. That being said," he sighed, relaxing in his seat. "You'll want Fighting-types, Grass-types, Water-types, Psychic-types and Electric-types for the lower levels of the cave. You'll run into lots of Graveler, Golbat and Machoke in there."

"Some of the other Trainers in there are the most hardcore I've ever seen," the girl added. "Hi, my name's Charlotte," she said quickly, extending her hand. Before Joshua could respond with his own name and accepting her handshake, she continued. "There are veterans and Dragon Tamers, but mostly just plain old Ace Trainers all over the place. They have an annoying habit of double-teaming you as well, so make sure your first two strongest Pokémon in the lead at all times."

"So, it'd be like going through any Trainer-infested area with wild Pokémon roaming around, like Mount Coronet?" asked Joshua. And he thought it'd be difficult.

The man's face turned a little distant. "Mostly, but there's something else. The Pokémon in Victory Road, along with being the strongest you'll find in the province, are also highly aggressive compared to anywhere else. Usually the Trainer attacks first when out in the wild, but these ones attack unprovoked. Your one Pokémon could soon see itself surrounded on all sides by Onix and Graveler if you're not careful. In my four round-trips through the Road, I've never once seen a Pokémon attack a Trainer, but after seeing some of the aggression by these things, you can never be too careful. You should go in with a pack full of Repels of all varieties, just in case."

Joshua winced inwardly. Of all the supplies to purchase, he specifically neglected to buy Repels, calling it 'conditioning' for his Pokémon. He also only purchased a single Escape Rope, to be used in the direst of emergencies.

"Around what level are your Pokémon at, son?"

Joshua blinked, trying to recall what the nurse at Sunyshore's Poké Centre had told him before he set sail.

"Mid fifties all around," the nurse called from the desk, having eavesdropped on the whole conversation, looking over a long list of statistics for Joshua's freshly rejuvenated team. The two experienced Trainers sitting with him inhaled slightly.

"Mid fifties?" Charlotte hummed. "It'll be tough. You're in for one rough ride…one you'll have to take if you want to even consider being ready for the Elite Four. You must have a lot of confidence on your team to be thinking of going through the cave at this point."

"I agree with Charlotte," the nurse called from the desk. "Maybe you should consider training along Route Two-Twenty-Three a little bit before heading in. Being at a mediocre level might be fine for getting through, say, Eterna Forest, but you're going to be in the cave for _days_. The swimmers are usually up to helping a Trainer raise their Pokémon up a few levels before heading into the cave."

Joshua faced forward for a moment, weighing his options. From what the man told him, he had a definite type advantage over most of the Pokémon in Victory Road, but only his Flareon was any fast; the remainder of his team, while it'd be possible to dish out one hit knock outs left and right, would still be moving second on a regular basis, and their health might get chipped at the longer he stays in the cave.

"There's a Poké Centre at the other end of Victory Road, right?" he asked.

"Yes, but your concern should be on what's _in _Victory Road, not what's _past _it. You can focus on the Pokémon League once you're on the other end of the cave."

He frowned, taking in this advice. The man said he'd made four roundabout trips through Victory Road, and even the nurse is advising him to put if off for a few days so he could train. But on the other hand, Victory Road is right _there – _as if it's taunting him, _daring _him to reach out and grasp the opportunity to fulfill his dreams by the –

"I'll sleep on it," Joshua lied, his mind already made up. He was good at keeping straight faces, so the other three believed him. He glanced at his Pokétch, fiddling with its two buttons a little to get to the digital clock application. "Oh, jeez, it's already ten o'clock! I need to head to bed!"

Charlotte seemed less than amused with the concept of being in bed shortly after the sun had completely vanished without a trace, but the old man laughed at the exuberance. "In a rush to make those decisions, huh? You must really want to get to the Pokémon League either way."

"You have no idea," Joshua said over his shoulder, returning to the counter for his Poké Balls and a key to a vacant room. "Thank you all for the sound advice, as well."

"Don't mention it," the man said.

"Don't be a stranger!" Charlotte called at the same time.

Joshua went into a separate hallway located in the corner of the lobby and went into his small, free room for the night. It had a single dresser with a mirror, a desk with a chair and a lit lamp, and a bed with a thin, stiff mattress; par the course for Poké Centres. He had stopped whining about the quality of the free shelters shortly after Oreburgh's Gym. He stripped to his underwear, placing his Trainer belt across the desk, and threw his dirty, unwashed clothes into the corner of the room, and climbed under the woolly, itchy sheets for as best a sleep as he could hope for.

He stood before the mouth of the cave, his head high with determination. The old man and Charlotte were still in bed – it was only seven in the morning – and the nurses had changed shifts, so the nurse from last night wasn't there to dissuade him any more from going into Victory Road.

Still, should he be concerned about his team's performance going into the cave? The three people he had talked to last night had more experience than he had with the cave, so they should know, and they all told him to put it off for a little while so he could train up his team a handful of levels each. Maybe he should do a few victory laps through Iron Island, just to be safe? It was always a good place to train.

On the other hand, he had absolutely _dominated _Volkner, the strongest of the Gym leaders in Sinnoh, and he was armed to the teeth with Potions, Revives, and assorted medicines. His Pokémon may take an overall hit in morale if he asks them to keep fighting when they keep losing, but it's more than possible to simply heal his way through Victory Road. It wouldn't be very good for training, but if he could at least get to the Pokémon League, he could fly and train anywhere he wanted to without having to deal with the cave again.

Then again, he only dominated Volkner because he used Torterra the whole time, and, with it being part Ground, it was completely immune to most everything Volkner had to throw at it.

But Victory Road is full of Rock- and Water-types, and he has Crunch for everything else. Torterra should still be able to handle it himself, no sweat!

…Relying on only one Pokémon the entire way through may be a good way to actually make it through Victory Road, but it'd also write books about his ability as a Trainer, and his confidence in the rest of his team. Not to mention he had heard that one of the Elite Four had a preference for Fire-types, where Torterra wouldn't stand the very slightest of chances. If he wanted to make it through Victory Road and stand _any _chance at all of succeeding against the Pokémon League, he needed to make sure everyone was getting an equal workout.

Finally resolving that inner-conflict with himself, he turned himself around, facing out towards watery Route 223 and the magnificent lights of Sunyshore off in the distance; the natural rock formation making a cute Munchlax nicely silhouetted against the city's lighthouse. The sun hadn't completely risen yet, making a gorgeous painting in the glass-like ocean water; a picture-perfect blend of dark purples, oranges, greens and grays, cascaded with the fading starlight of the morning sky. It almost made him forget that he was going to be facing his toughest challenge yet in a minute, and when he did, he found it almost funny that he's willing to throw this moment away for the dark, unforgiving grisliness of Victory Road. He finally tore his gaze away from Sunyshore and forced his left foot in front of his right, heading into the cave.

It was surprisingly bright in Victory Road. He had brought along the store-bought 'technical' machine 'Flash' in case Victory Road proved to be drenched in permanent night, but the natural illumination on some of the stones lining the walls, along with the reflective surfaces of the few Onix using the move Rock Polish, made it almost brighter than it currently was outside. He could clearly see numerous rope bridges assembled to assist Trainers in their journey to make it to the other side of the road; families of four and five Golbat lined the stalactites, each still rowdy from last night's pack hunting; he even saw a Steelix off in the distance, the massive metal snake slowly slithering its way to some familiar territory.

Joshua entered Victory Road with mixed feelings and thoughts. On the one hand, Victory Road didn't feel that much different from Mount Coronet. Coronet was a gargantuan mountain splitting Sinnoh cleanly in half, but, handled in pieces; one trainer could ascend and descend its hollowed innards in the space of a day or so. Victory Road would be longer laterally than Coronet was vertically, but most of the wild Pokémon he'd seen so far seemed standard fare for caves and rugged terrain. Golbat, Machoke, Graveler and the occasional Onix – nothing he's never handled before. Victory Road, though, would house stronger Pokémon than Coronet, sure, but Joshua's handled powerful Pokémon before – he did school Volkner, right?

He wasted no further time dawdling at the cave's entrance and began his trek through the caves. He had no map to guide him, but, based on what he could see, he quickly mapped out a small path for himself on his Pokétch – up a set of man-made stairs etched into the side of a small rock formation, across the rope bridge, down another set of stairs, and pause to figure out where he should start heading next. All the while he fended off waves of unusually rowdy Pokémon with his own team. Torterra, Lucario and Golduck would head off the Rock-types; Luxray and Flareon would pick off all the Golbat that thirsted after the newcomer's blood; and Honchkrow was more than happy to pick fights with the Machoke. Some of the Ace Trainers that Joshua met there had pulled out a surprising variety of different types – and met at least two different Dragon Tamers in the cave – but, as was unusually common of many Trainers, they typically didn't carry more than three or four Pokémon at a time, and they were easily brushed aside.

The Trainers, all of them, from the Veterans to the Aces to the Dragon Tamers, had been hired by the Pokémon League itself, Joshua learned. Their entire job was to serve as obstacles for any Trainer interested in challenging the League. Not to deter them, but to test them, to invigorate them. If the Trainer lost even once, they'd be forced to start from the beginning of the cave, or else the League would refuse admittance. If the Trainer couldn't beat one opponent, how could they think they were ready for the League? How could they think that they compare to five of the most powerful Trainers in the province?

Joshua had no way of telling the time outside of his Pokétch and Pokédex. The illumination of the stones in the cave gave the impression of constant daylight, skewing his perception of time. Joshua promised himself that he would call it a day every day at 9:30 P.M. sharp, and on the first day in the cave, he accidentally found himself still battling well into ten o'clock. He quickly pitched a tent, released all of his Pokémon for their meals, and soon fell asleep in the comfort of his tent. His sleep was uneasy, though: there were wild, unusually aggressive Pokémon out there, and there was the constant lingering thought that some irate Machoke or Graveler is going to stumble upon his makeshift shelter and rip it to shreds without a moments' thought. Thankfully for Joshua, his worries were unfounded, and at 8 A.M. the next morning he was up and ready to continue his trek through Victory Road.

Joshua quickly got the hang of travelling through Victory Road. The path wasn't always laid out for him and he often had to blaze his own trail – more than once he had to use a makeshift ramp made out of precariously placed stones to sling himself over an obstacle, and others he had to rely on his Flareon's Strength to move some boulders that had shifted onto his path, but otherwise, it was just another test to him. His team was still going strong, seemingly excited about their scenario, and Joshua found himself using far less supplies than he had anticipated. The occasional Potion and Ether here and there, but all in all, it looked like he had overspent his money for nothing. Each felled opponent, wild and Trainer alike, added to his confidence. He was _sure _he'd be able to stand toe-to-toe with the Elite Four at this rate.

The path through Victory Road had led him in 'ropes' around the interior of the cave, alternating between an 'upper floor' and a 'basement'. To Joshua's surprise, the basement of Victory Road housed several ponds, at least one lake, and three waterfalls – so this is why the old man recommended an Electric-type. The area was not only littered with Trainers fancying Psychic- and Dragon-types, but he also found himself combating exceedingly powerful Floatzel, among other powerful Water-types; something Joshua had not anticipated. Flareon saw little action in the basement area of the cave, as a result, though Golduck, Torterra and Luxray were free to run amok in the wetlands.

Joshua kept a closer eye on his Pokétch this time, making sure he didn't overshoot his schedule at all, compared to as largely as he had last time. Immediately at half-past-nine at night, Joshua released his whole team again for their supper, and looked over everyone's condition with his Pokétch in the meantime. No one was at one-hundred percent strength, obviously, but no one needed any desperate attention either. They were all anxious to continue their trek and finally get to the one place their Master had been striving to get to for the past few years.

"Torterra, you're doing pretty well so far," Joshua said, running his wristwatch over his starter Pokémon. Torterra was the team's strongest Pokémon, physically: Joshua purposely had him see a bit more action than the rest of the team, so he could stay ahead in experience and ability. Torterra was meant to be the leader of the pack (under his own Master, of course), and his authority was exerted sternly, Joshua noticed: Torterra was normally quiet and kept to himself, but he was loud and brash whenever he felt someone else in the team was acting up. He was frequently challenged by Honchkrow, but Torterra always managed to win, somehow. "I know you only learned that Leaf Storm attack recently and you're eager to use it, but remember that it takes a lot out of you in the long run. Stick with Giga Drain and Crunch for the time being, okay? I'll let you use Leaf Storm all you like when we get to the Elite Four." Torterra grunted his understanding and resumed his meal, consisting of berries and special plants.

Sitting next to Torterra was Luxray, the 'next in line', as it were. Luxray was the second Pokémon Joshua had owned and the first he caught, back when he was a Shinx. Joshua had read that Electric-type Pokémon wandering the tall grass were rather uncommon in most parts of the country, including Sinnoh, so he thought it would be a good idea to raise one from the start. Shinx proved to be just a nuisance against Roark, but from then on, he went straight up in ability and proved to be an asset to the team in no time flat. "Luxray, you're fighting well and you're laying out the Golbat left and right, but stop using Thunder so often. It's inaccurate, and all it would take is a well-timed Air Cutter or something and it'll take more than a few potions to help you out. You also have Thunder Fang; try using it more often." He gave Luxray a pat on the head and a scruff on the neck and left the electric lion back to his dinner.

Flareon lay next to Luxray, enjoying her own set of berries and small meats. Joshua had received Eevee as a gift long after he began his journey. This one Eevee was one of a litter of four, and the little boy who owned the mother Eevee was practically handing them out. Eevee were exceptionally rare throughout the country, and their adaptability to any environment made them highly sought after. Joshua wasted no time in adopting his own little bundle of fur. Deciding to change her into a Flareon, though, took a bit more time to decide; Joshua ultimately made the decision based on the number of Fire-types roaming throughout Sinnoh (a single-digit number, making fighting Grass-types (and those damned Bronzong, too!) all the more difficult). Ever since Joshua adopted the little Eevee, she's been very attached to Luxray; as far as he knew they weren't mates, but then again, he didn't have his eyes glued on them every waking second, and they _were _compatible, but it wasn't a topic he liked to dwell on. "You must be exhausted, Flareon. I've been making you move boulders left and right all day." He patted the small dog gently on the head, and she nudged into his palm affectionately. Her joints seemed a little strained at the action; Joshua hoped she would sleep like a newborn tonight. "You're fighting very well, girl. You outrun most Machoke and you fry most Medicham. Just keep your strength up a little while longer, and we'll be at the next Poké Centre before you know it."

He turned around to face his next team-mate. He had received an egg from a sailor returning from Iron Island back when he was in Canalave City, looking for a fight with the Gym leader there, Byron. He had heard that Iron Island was a great place to train, and when he mentioned that he was going there to give himself and his team a good workout, the sailor mentioned that he had picked up a Pokémon egg from a few days before, when he was visiting the island for an unrelated reason. The sailor had no family and he wasn't particularly into raising Pokémon himself, especially from birth, so he practically forced the egg onto Joshua.

When a male Riolu eventually forced its way out of its shell about a week later, Joshua wasn't impressed, as a whole. Not because he wasn't fond of Fighting-types – Dark-types were becoming increasingly frequent, and Fighting-types were strong against them – but because he already had five badges, fighting to get his sixth (he had attempted once and failed against the Steel-type Leader), and now he had a whole new Pokémon to raise from scratch. He couldn't, in good conscience, leave the little thing in a box in his PC, so he had it hold an 'EXP. Share' device he won in a contest earlier and let it grow from the safety of the sidelines.

Joshua had failed twice to receive his badge from Byron, and after training for almost three brutal weeks on Iron Island, he was convinced that Byron wouldn't stand a chance against his new hardened team. Riolu still hadn't evolved by then, but Joshua was getting comfortable using him in battle against the Rock- and Steel-types of the island. Once the Steelix of the island purposely turned around and burrowed underground after Joshua sent Riolu to fight – dispirited from fighting the little creature that stood to the human's knees – he was convinced that Riolu would be the key to winning that Mine Badge once and for all. Riolu evolved into Lucario a short while after winning that badge, after Joshua nearly froze to death during his hellish walk through Route 217.

"Your aim is spectacular with Aura Sphere, Lucario. I don't think I've ever seen it miss once! These Graveler aren't anything you can't handle, not by a long shot – but don't fight those Medicham anymore, not after what happened seven hours ago," he warned. He noticed that Lucario's left arm still seemed a little limp after a Hi Jump Kick to the shoulder, narrowly missing his skull. "As a part Steel-type, I don't need to remind you that I'm comfortable sending you to fight Golbat and other Flying-types, but you need to be careful of other Fighting-types for the same reason." Lucario had paused eating his meal of strict Pinap berries, his blood-red eyes stared into Joshua, listening intently to everything he had to say. It was kinda creepy, to be honest, but at least he appreciated being taken as seriously as Lucario took him. "Don't forget to use Agility more often, too. Your opponents can't hit what they can't see, right?" Lucario barked his understanding, and offered his paw for Joshua to shake. Out of his whole team, Lucario was one of the two only bipedal ones of the bunch, with his paws vaguely resembling hands. Joshua and Lucario made a 'secret handshake' between them when Joshua learned that Riolu evolved via their attachment to their Trainers, and it seemed to help immensely, although Joshua had an awful lot of scars all over his hands from the spikes on the back of Lucario's paws as a result. They quickly made a new one to compensate.

Sitting next to Lucario was Joshua's Golduck, enjoying a nice, warm meal of cooked meats and vegetables. Since she was a Water-type, she didn't need liquids as often as the others, and as a result she'd only taken to dry berries, like Cornn berries and Chesto berries, ever since she evolved.

Joshua found his first Psyduck on the lower levels of the Oreburgh Gate, returning to Jubilife. It surprised the hell out of him, initially: since he had gone through the gate twice, spent a few days in the city of stone, rummaged his way through the city's mine in a vain attempt to find the city's Gym Leader, find Roark and finally beat him on the first try, he wasn't expecting to find a Water-type, the bane of every Rock-type user out there, resting just underneath the city. Joshua knew that if he wanted to travel the province of Sinnoh, and ultimately the whole country, he'd _need _a Water-type Pokémon capable of learning Surf and Waterfall. Psyduck wasn't his first choice, he'll openly admit, but he eventually grew attached to the creepy duck, and when she evolved into a Golduck (and finally started learning some useful Psychic-type attacks. Joshua couldn't express his gratitude enough when Golduck surprised him with a Psychic attack fighting a Medicham along Route 210), she cemented her position permanently as one of Joshua's 'go-to' Pokémon. Her overall usefulness couldn't be compared, especially when they were travelling across any body of water.

"Those Floatzel never knew what they were up against, were they, Golduck?" Joshua laughed, clapping Golduck on her slimy shoulder. Golduck gave some kind of laughing-like sound in response, fondly remembering putting those rookie Water-types in their place. "I want you to start using Waterfall more often against Rock-types. You've been using Surf a lot lately, in battles and out of them, and I'm worried overusing one attack will burn you out eventually. If we find any more Water-types, go nuts with Psychic and Surf, but otherwise, stick to Waterfall. I know it's less powerful and less accurate, and you're stronger with your mind than you are with your body, but just trust me on this for now." Golduck sent a small telepathic wave to Joshua. He knew it was her way of communicating with him, but all it felt like, to him, someone was putting a small amount of pressure on the centre of his mind. It was never enough to make it feel painful, but he always hated it when she did that, and she knew it.

The final Pokémon on Joshua's team was an abnormally large female Honchkrow. At first, Joshua was content with using his Starly, the third Pokémon he ever owned and the second he ever caught, as his designated Flying-type Pokémon, but he was always turned off by the fact that it was part Normal. He wasn't counting on finding another Flying-type Pokémon – at least, none that were native to Sinnoh – but when he was running through Eterna Forest one night, desperately trying to find his way out, he was attacked by a lone Murkrow. Apparently Joshua wandered right into her territory, and judging from the Murkrow's unusual size, she had to fend off a lot of intruders in her life. A brisk zap from one agitated Luxio and a quick toss of a Dark Ball that Joshua happened to have handy, and it was added to his list of caught Pokémon.

Joshua was attracted to Murkrow's Dark- and Flying mix. Although she was only as strong as Starly (Staravia at that point) against Fighting-types, Joshua knew he could find more uses for a Dark-type Pokémon than a Normal-type. Naturally, however, they were both rather irate towards each other, and Murkrow would often ignore orders during battle, sometimes forcing Joshua to forfeit matches entirely because of it. The feeling was mutual; Joshua was still a little sore-spirited towards Murkrow for attacking him when all he wanted was to get out of that frightening forest as unscathed as possible. Joshua was seriously considering releasing her when she cost him the match against Gardenia in Eterna City's Gym, but the nurse at the local Poké Centre convinced him to give her one more chance. He was pessimistic, but was won over when the nurse offered him a Soothe Bell she had received from her cousin living in Hoenn, which he accepted. The item apparently made the Pokémon wearing it grow attached to its Trainer over time.

Results were not immediate, but after four days, Joshua found Murkrow listening to him in battle, and accepting the berries he offered as opposed to hunting for her own meals (which never worked well in caves and cities). It wasn't until Joshua ran into a random thug, who sought to make Joshua's Pokémon his own by violent and potentially lethal means, interrupted his battle with a wild Kadabra along Route 215. Joshua was attacked at knifepoint, and Murkrow was busy defending herself against the thug's Pikachu. It was raining at the time of the attack, so Pikachu's Thundershock attacks were deadly accurate. It was an unfortunate encounter for both of them, but they helped each other through it: unexpectedly, Murkrow dove-bombed the human assailant, giving Joshua enough time to disarm him and toss the knife harmlessly into a small trough of bushes to the side. Pikachu retaliated by attacking Murkrow with a fierce Thunderbolt, but just before it could get the shot off, Joshua threw himself into the bird, knocking them both clear of the strike. Wasting no more time, he withdrew his entire Pokémon team to help defend against the attacker, and succeeded in fending them both off seconds later. The entire ordeal cost Joshua a week's time of journeying, returning to the previous Poké Centre to heal his and Murkrow's wounds, but the entire event cemented Joshua's relationship with Murkrow; she quickly became attached to him, and she soon became a favourite choice of Joshua's for battle.

"Fighting Machoke and Medicham is a lot of fun, isn't it?" Joshua asked. Honchkrow cawed back affectionately, spreading her wings very slightly. "And you have a good arsenal of Dark-type attacks for all the Rock-types lying around here. Just try not to get in too close to the action, because remember, one hit with those rocks and you'll have trouble getting back up. Also, it's a lot of fun watching you fight those Golbat up in the sky, but that doesn't mean you have to pick fights with more than one at a time. I'm already impressed with you, Honchkrow; you don't need to keep trying to." Joshua drummed his fingers off Honchkrow's 'fedora', a habit he picked up soon after she evolved.

There wasn't a whole lot of food left for himself, but it would be enough to get him through the cave. "Alright, team," he said as he sat down to his own meal: a handful of berries, a small slab of fat, and his last bottle of water. He had some sodas and lemonades remaining, so he wasn't concerned about his liquid reserves. "I honestly have no idea how much farther it is through Victory Road. It could be only another few hours; it could be three more days. But one thing's for sure: we're ready to fight the Elite Four themselves." Most of the Pokémon had finished eating their meals and were ready to just go back into their Poké Balls and sleep. They were all pretty weary after today's unexpected trip through the lakes. "You're all handling yourselves really well out there, and I'm proud that you've all learned to take care of yourselves during your time with me. Just imagine what we'll be capable of if we can beat the strongest team in Sinnoh!" Truth be told, Joshua had no idea what he was going to do if – once he beat the Elite Four's champion. Would he retire permanently off the wages he's earned during his time as a Trainer? Would he release his Pokémon team back into the wild, where he found them all respectively? Would he travel to the other provinces and fight other Trainers, exotic Pokémon, gain another eight badges for each one, and become the champion of Hoenn, Johto and Kanto, and of other provinces and countries? The topic's been on his mind ever since the Beacon Badge fell into his palm.

"I've got a gift for all of you," he continued, reaching into his backpack. "When I went on my huge shopping spree before we got here, I bought a capsule of Calcium for each of you. I was going to hold onto them until we got out of Victory Road, as thanks for seeing me this far, but I figured, what the hell, they're not getting any fresher." He withdrew two pills, each with a large 'C' engraved on them, in his right hand. He was quickly swamped by each member of his team, eager to get their share of the miracle vitamin. Golduck was first, using her telekinesis to will her one pill to herself, followed by Lucario, being the only other Pokémon with 'hands'. The rest were hand-fed their calcium.

"Things will only be getting more difficult from here on out," Joshua said, reaching for the Poké Balls around his waist. "Get some sleep; soon we'll be among the few to complete Victory Road on the first try." Flareon and Torterra were already well asleep, with Lucario and Luxray struggling to stay awake. Golduck was wide awake, despite having worked the hardest: though she wasn't a Psychic-type, her ability to work with Psychic-type attacks helped her learn the basics of 'mind over matter' and found that she could push her body to much farther limits than the rest of her family. Honchkrow was not only awake, but still ready to keep going: as a Dark-type Pokémon, exploring during the night was inherently her forte. But Joshua wouldn't have any of that, and quickly saw each of them into their respective homes before calling it a night himself.

Joshua never really liked walking around Victory Road during the night and early morning, simply because of the Golbat. They were always really hyper around those hours, because of their feeding frenzies. And in a cave where not a whole lot of fleshy organics grow, feeding can be quite competitive and fierce. Thankfully Joshua's tent looked quite unappetizing to wild Pokémon, so he was always safe from at least the bats.

Joshua had just beaten a veteran Trainer using a very well-trained Empoleon using his own Lucario. Joshua tended to rotate his Pokémon around, so they would each get as much experience at an even pace as the rest, and luckily for him, his part Fighting-type had come across the part Steel-type just as it was Lucario's turn up front. Rather than withdraw his Pokémon, as Joshua usually did after battles, he kept Lucario out this time – Joshua noticed a craggy rock-face leading up to a ledge just a few paces away, and Lucario was the one in the team who knew Rock Climb, so it made more sense to keep him out for now.

"Lucario, if you don't mind," Joshua said casually, nodding to the wall. He was always uncomfortable having Lucario climb a rock wall for him, if only because it meant Joshua would have to piggyback on the tough Pokémon and it seemed a little demeaning towards himself.

After the short climb, they both spotted an idle Onix off in the distance. It was awake, and was grooming itself against the rough rock walls. Lucario always had a thing for fighting Onix, ever since Iron Island, and eagerly awaited permission from him Master to go and fight the giant rock snake. "Go ahead, Lucario, have fun," Joshua said, and the Pokémon was off like a shot. The Onix noticed the small Fighting-type's aggression and quickly responded with its own, launching a blindingly fast Iron Tail in Lucario's direction.

Onix weren't normally so fast – it must've used Rock Polish to aid its grooming earlier – so Lucario was blindsided by the attack, flying clear off his feet and landing a good few yards back, skidding to a stop. Lucario rubbed his sore chest, but wasn't deterred at all, and quickly began his assault again. This time, Lucario got in close enough to get in a Rock Climb attack, knowing full well that it wasn't very effective against Onix, but wanting to play a little bit with his opponent before his Master called him back.

Onix recoiled slightly from the attack before quickly responding with a Dragonbreath. It was another unexpected attack from the mighty rock snake, but Lucario nimbly leapt out of the way, allowing the breath to scorch the ground instead of his fur. In an attempt to spook the Onix, Lucario took off like a shot, putting his Agility to good use, and ran far faster than the normally slow Onix could see. Onix was unimpressed; he responded with a Screech, which stopped Lucario in his tracks. His paws quickly covered his ears in an attempt to drown out the shrill, ear-piercing yell, but failed to cover himself before the gist of the noise registered to his mind. His legs quivered slightly as he attempted to regain his stance, shaken to the core from the yell.

Lucario had a Ganlon berry tucked behind his right ear since the end of the first day in Victory Road. He was told by his Master that, if he ever felt like he was weak in his knees, and that it felt as though he was frail as a newborn Glameow, he should eat it. He noticed that Onix was still reeling from its own Screech attack, so Lucario took the opportunity to quickly scarf down the berry. The effect wasn't immediate, but after only a moment, he felt his strength return to him, and soon enough he felt as though the opponent's Screech attack hadn't even occurred at all (aside from the ringing in his ears). Funny, though; Lucario thought his Master would've shouted a command, or some praise for his quick thinking by now, but no, Lucario didn't hear a peep. He took it as a sign of pride: he was clearly doing well enough to not require instruction. And that uppity Luxray thought _he _was the smartest!

Still, Lucario didn't want to risk having another one of those awkward shrieks rupture his eardrums, so he decided that now would be a good time to end the battle with this Onix. "It's been fun," he said in his Pokémon tongue, "and nostalgic for me, but I'd really rather just finish this fight now."

"I couldn't agree more, Caterpie," the Onix replied in its gruff voice. "You look like your bones will last quite a while as toothpicks!" Onix slammed its tail into the ground, vibrating the earth in such a way that the rocks surrounding their small arena began to tumble from the walls, cascading towards Lucario. _Pah, Sand Tomb?_ He thought, effortlessly evading the attack and wringing himself around the Onix' neck, positioning himself for a Close Combat. _Would've gotten farther with Bite, the stupid thing. _A few quick chops to the back of the neck, and the Onix fell to the ground, knocked cleanly unconscious.

Lucario dismounted the Onix' body, putting his paws on his hips, admiring his work knocking out his eighty-fourth Onix. He was expecting some praise from his Master, a pat on the shoulder, a ruffle of the fur…but nothing. Not even a 'good work, Lucario'. He wasn't even being recalled back into his Poké Ball. What was–?

Lucario turned to see what was occupying his Master's attention. What he saw was a ball of clothes, human flesh, hair, and wings tumbling over itself on the ground. Lucario was confused and didn't understand what he was looking at, until the ball fought itself to its feet. A weak cry for help rang through the air, and Lucario got an eyeful of what was going on: a Golbat, hungry and apparently unsuccessful with the night's raid, had latched onto his Master's neck and began bleeding him dry, after the human's bloody nutrients.

"Ha..." Joshua yelped weakly, his eyes trained on Lucario's position. "Help, Lucario…!" he yelled with all his might. His hands were trained on prying the bat's jaws off his right shoulder, but the Golbat was exerting far too much pressure, and Joshua was far too weak at that point to gain any upper hand at all.

Lucario had to think fast. He didn't want to risk running up to the Golbat immediately, in case the bat might get spooked and become even more violent towards his Master. And even if it didn't, Rock Climb would get his Master in the blast as well, considering how close Golbat was to him. Ignoring the blaring type disadvantage, Lucario immediately set himself up for an Aura Sphere attack. It wouldn't be very powerful against the Flying-type bat, _but I never miss, _Lucario thought to himself, confident that he could knock the bat off his Master without catching him in the blast as well.

Joshua was having difficulty standing, but remained still, to focus his strength on prying the bat off with his hands (tumbling around on the ground clearly wasn't working, and he figured he'd be doing Lucario a favour by staying as still as possible). He saw that Lucario had fired an Aura Sphere in his direction; well, it may not be the greatest of attacks considering the opponent, but Joshua trusted Lucario's aim – apparently, enough with his life.

A tense few seconds passed before a force knocked the Golbat off of Joshua's shoulder. It went soaring with a screeching noise, riding the attack into the cave. Lucario breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that his desperate gambit had worked to a well enough degree; but quickly panicked when he saw that his Master was falling off the ledge of the rock face they had climbed earlier, the force of the Aura Sphere knocking his Master off balance. Lucario ran towards Joshua, fear and panic and desperation written all throughout his face, desperately wishing he could get to his Master before he fell off the face of the cliff. Joshua, meanwhile, was trying to keep his balance by waving his arms and thrusting his body forward, but to no avail: he fell backward off the cliff, his body bouncing relentlessly off the jutted rocks, feeling his clothes rip, his skin bleed, and his bones break, until finally falling blissfully unconscious as he hit the floor of the cave.

Lucario flung himself off the cliff face, hoping to dear almighty Arceus that his Master was alive. The dust had risen around his Master's body as the sickening sound of beaten flesh clapping against dirt filled his ears. Lucario closed his eyes, searching for his Master's Aura through the dust as he landed – it was there, thankfully, but it was weaker than Lucario had ever seen it before, including after that terrifying trek through Route 217. He was alive, but barely.

He leaned down against his Master's body, turning him over and getting a look at his bloodied, broken face. Lucario was instantly brought to tears – he blamed himself for this, opting to fight another Onix over protecting his Master, and look what happened because of it. Why didn't he just try to Close Combat the Golbat when he had the option? He would've been close enough to control his strikes, so that Joshua wouldn't be caught in the attack–

Lucario cradled the broken human in his arms, desperately thinking over his options and what he should do next, but he kept getting distracted by the shock of what had happened to his Master. He was in charge of his Master's safety at the time: _he _was responsible for Joshua's condition. How could he let this happen?

A loud explosion filled the cave off in the distance as Lucario's Aura Sphere finally hit the wall, exploding the ball of concentrated energy into the cave. The Golbat probably exploded with the Aura, Lucario thought. _Well, serves him right, _he concluded, returning to the desperation at hand. But soon, a powerful vibration filled the cave, followed by the excited screams and the frantic flapping of Golbat wings. Graveler and Onix quickly burrowed into the ground, while Machoke and Medicham quickly found shelter under some rocky outcroppings. Lucario wondered what was going on, before suddenly, some rocks began falling off the walls and ceilings all around him. Horrified shouts and screams of fellow Pokémon Trainers filled the cave with the Golbat, and Lucario finally realized what was happening: the cave was beginning to collapse, probably thanks to how much power he had put behind that Aura Sphere.

Lucario wasn't as familiar with the cave as the Machoke and Medicham. While he knew that he could lift his Master to safety with ease, he had no idea where safety _was _in Victory Road. After watching a few more rocks fall dangerously close to both Pokémon and Trainer, Lucario tucked the spike in his chest under his left arm and jumped over Joshua, covering as much of the adult human's body as he could, in an attempt to protect him from the falling rocks, paying no mind to what was protecting _him _from the rocks.

The vibrations began to get worse, and soon, the very fabric of the cave began to unwind around them both. Lucario shut his eyes tightly as rocks bounced off his back and limbs, waiting for the cave-in to finish before it has a chance to crush them both under its weight. His Steel-type advantage protected him against the rocks, but eventually, too much would be too much; he just wished he had the strength to ride the collapse out before that happened. Above all else, Joshua must live through this.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucario had passed out during the cave-in. He didn't know how long he was out or how long the cave-in had lasted, but neither of those were important at the time. He felt heavier than he ever had in his entire life: it was a tremendous chore to lift his head or raise his back. His tail was in an awful lot of pain, and each of his four paws felt crushed. His eyes were itchier than was bearable, but he couldn't move his arms to scratch them (his left, particularly, was entirely numb from the shoulder down). Opening his eyes was definitely out of the question. He couldn't hear a sound aside from his own laboured breathing; his lungs stung and his heart felt weak, though he could feel each beat get stronger in intensity as time passed. There was no smell, other than the unmistakable smell of human flesh, and his mouth was filled with a vile dust, coating his tongue with the taste of dirt, and robbing him of any saliva to wash it away with.

But Lucario took every one of these sensations – the pain, the pressure on his back, the discomfort, the outright torture of it all – as good signs. He had survived the cave-in of Victory Road.

But had his Master – had Joshua survived the cave-in? That was the more important question.

Lucario's mind was dazed and broken, making focusing an unreasonable chore. But remembering the face of his Master, his best friend, gave him more than enough incentive to try his damndest. His eyes remained closed, and with a few attempts, Lucario managed to get a good grasp on the vision of Aura. He hadn't felt this incapable of performing the most basic of abilities for adult Lucario since he was a weak Riolu. The aqua-blue blaze of Aura filled his mind's eye, stretching his vision to all throughout Victory Road: Pokémon native to Victory Road were recovering from the cataclysm; Pokémon Trainers had all either evacuated the cave in time, or died in the collapse, but either way, there were no more humans within Victory Road; numerous Auras were weak and fragile, belonging to either lucky infant and veteran Pokémon or injured adults; some were petering out completely, right in front of Lucario's eyes; and the sky was ablaze with panicking Golbat and their young Zubat, desperately trying to make sense of the collapse.

Lucario didn't care the littlest bit about any of that; he wanted to know the condition of his own Trainer. But even though the human was directly below him, all the other sensations, distractions, were overwhelming Lucario's mind. It made it difficult to pinpoint any single Aura. Given the situation and his difficulty finding his Master's Aura, Lucario began to feel helpless. Why can't he find just _one _Aura when he can find hundreds of others, and the one he needs to find should be _right there?_

He hadn't felt this close to breaking down since…since Route 217.

_No._ He nearly lost Joshua once, when he was a Riolu. He will _not _risk it again.

Remembering that terrifying walk through the waist-deep snow and nearly watching his Master freeze to death was enough of a catalyst to focus his mind on Joshua, and _only _Joshua. Instantly, all the other Auras, of Pokémon and other organic life, blanked out, leaving only two in the endless black void: his own, and his Master's. Joshua was alive, and his Aura appeared stable, but it was critically low. His heart was weak and struggling to pump. His lungs were barely functional at all, and his breathing was irregular, but he was keeping up. He had numerous cuts and lacerations all over his body, though the blood clotting process was well along the way. His left arm appeared dislocated at the elbow. Joshua was in a coma, likely suffered from that fall off the cliff face. But he was _alive._

Neither of them were going to get in any better condition remaining in the position they were. Lucario dredged up as much energy as he possibly could, calling for strength from every essence of his body, to stand up. His muscles ached and his bones protested, but slowly, painfully, he began to rise. As soon as he was able, he removed his left arm from between himself and his Master, and placed it on the ground; it was numb and had its blood cut off for some time, but eventually it began to feel terrible; it worked well as a brace, but he felt nothing but pain from it. He gasped and barked unintelligibly a few times from the strain, but soon enough, he could hear the sound of stone tumbling over itself as the titanic mountain atop his body slowly took a cone shape from his efforts. His teeth clenched together as he used every muscle in his body to help lift, even the ones on his face. In a crawling position on all fours, Lucario whipped his left leg under himself to use as a brace, instantly feeling the mind-crushing pain soar through his entire leg and up his spine; he forced himself to ignore it. The more he stood under the weight, the lighter the weight became; and with one final, heroic gasp and a thrust from his arms and legs, he and his Master were free of the weight.

All the sounds of Victory Road flooded Lucario's ears in a crash, but he was too spent to cover his ears, instead attempting to splay them, but only half-succeeding even then. Lucario collapsed again, his muscles finally winning his undivided attention, choosing to rest for only a second, only a minute, before he figured out what he could possibly do next…

How long was he out this time? He must've nodded off shortly after getting the rocks off himself, going into a dreamless sleep for…apparently hours: the Golbat have mostly settled down and roosted on the cave's stalactites again, meaning it must've been noon, or mid-afternoon, considering.

Lucario rolled over onto his back, checking his Master's Aura again to make sure he hadn't died when he had irresponsibly fell asleep. No, still alive, but not getting any better. He forced his paws to rub his eyes. Finally clear of the dust, he painfully blinked them open: the natural light of the luminescent crystals singed his eyes, forcing him to flinch and squint his eyes nearly shut, attempting to focus again. Eventually he was able to, and the familiar dull brown of the cave settled back into place in his vision. He immediately turned to face his Master and see for his eyes what the Aura could not show him: his skin was torn and bruised, he was bleeding out of his mouth and nose, his limbs remained covered under the rocks…his Trainer, Joshua, had seen better days. His clothes were so badly torn and damaged from the rocks that it appeared as though he were more naked than clothed, and anything that wasn't destroyed was blooded through. Lucario glanced up the jaded slope of the cliff-face – it had a gentler slope than most, but its cragginess had him thank Arceus again and again for giving his Master the luck to even survive the fall, with as few broken bones as he did.

For the next five minutes, Lucario carefully removed any debris still resting on his Master, thinking silently about what he should do next. He wasn't in any condition to carry his Master the whole way through the cave by himself while still fending off any predators taking advantage of the chaotic situation. He was good at climbing rock faces, but he tended to sink like a stone in water, so swimming across the lakes were out of the question. It took all of them two days to get as far as they had, and that was when the beaten path was somewhat-defined; now, the entire makeup of the cave had changed, and there was no telling if it was possible to even take the same way back.

_Torterra would know what to do, _Lucario thought sadly, when it dawned on him. Can't he just release Torterra himself? Can't he just release the whole team himself? He'd been in enough two-versus-two matches to know that, to release a fellow or opposing Pokémon, all it would take was a toss of their Poké Ball, and pop, there they'd be. A simple concept…

Male Trainers tended to keep their Poké Balls around their waist, attached to a special kind of belt. It didn't take much searching to find three red-and-white Poké Balls, one a dark-green and black colour with a camouflage-like decoration, one entirely white with a red strip around its circumference, and one black-and-gold Poké Ball attached to a worn brown leather belt just above his Master's legs. Getting them off the belt wasn't as easy: they seemed to be held firmly in place by some kind of latch that Lucario couldn't figure out for the life of him. But after some perseverance and several powerful tugs, the first one finally pulled free of the strap, permanently damaging the hook keeping it in place.

_Well, that was easy enough_, Lucario thought, rotating the sphere in his paw. But would the next step be so easy? Just a flick of the wrist, and then whoever's in there pops out? No other trick to it, like, pressing the button on the ball, or maybe he had to put a certain amount of spin into the toss?

Realizing that the only way to learn was to do, he wound his right arm back and tossed the small ball against the nearest wall with all his might. The ball collided with the rocks with an unusual _crunch_, and in a quick flash of light, out from the ball came a confused and dazed Luxray, violently shaking his head, attempting to regain focus.

"What was _that?_" Luxray growled at his Master, asking why so much force was put behind simply releasing him from his home. "You haven't beamed me out of my Poké Ball like that for years, Master! Have we-" he opened his eyes, expecting to look into Joshua's frozen blue set, but instead met Lucario's fierce red gaze. "Lucario?" he asked, bewildered. This was a first. "Why did you–"

Luxray noticed the debris from the recent catastrophe. Nothing looked like the way it did only a few days ago: rock was strewn all over the ground; he could count how many stalactites remained on the ceiling with his paws; the native Pokémon were all acting frantic and hyper, desperately trying to keep order in their packs and families; and Lucario looked like he was ready to die where he stood. "Arceus almighty, what happened here? Where's Master?"

Lucario turned to the side, giving Luxray the full view of Joshua's horribly broken and mangled body. Luxray gave a pained cry and pounced onto his Master, lightly taking in his scent and gently tending to his wounds. He was relieved to see that his Master was breathing, but no matter how many times he asked, his Master would not open his eyes.

Lucario meanwhile examined the Poké Ball he threw at the rock face. He knew mid-swing that he was tossing it too hard, but he wanted to know how hard was _too _hard. Upon inspection, the ball appeared cracked in several places along the outside, and the ball couldn't click closed properly. It was probably destroyed. He sighed, and turned back to the crying electric lion. "Help me get the Poké Balls off of Master's belt, Luxray," Lucario uttered. He had no more tears to spare for the moment. "I'll explain to everyone what's happened when they're all out."

Luxray took a moment, then agreed, though he could hardly muster the energy to pry the balls off of his Master's belt with his teeth in his sobbing state. Lucario released Torterra next, his toss gentle and underhanded; the giant tortoise's expression when he first saw his oldest and most respected friend in such a critical state was enough to break hearts twice over. Golduck and Flareon were next; Flareon openly wept and howled and sprayed pillars of fire in her sadness, though Golduck took to crying inwardly, finding it difficult to look at her Master for more than a few seconds at a time. The next Poké Ball tossed was empty; it belonged to Lucario. The final Poké Ball, freed from its latch released the large Honchkrow. When faced with Joshua's broken and mangled body, she merely tipped her 'fedora' in respect, crying no tears, whispering no apologies, and demanding no explanations.

Flareon laid next to her Master, tenderly nudging his head occasionally in an attempt to rouse him from his unconsciousness. Luxray sat dutifully next to his Trainer, staring out over the cave, keeping an eye on those bastard Golbat, though it was mostly to keep himself busy so he wouldn't have to look at or think about his defeated friend. Golduck sat facing away from Joshua, while Lucario, Torterra and Honchkrow stood in a circle closer to the wall, facing each other.

"Lucario," Torterra finally managed to say, "you were out of your Poké Ball when this happened. How did Joshua get this way? What happened to the cave? And what happened to you?"

Lucario retold the entire scenario, starting with the fight against the trained Empoleon. How he took his time fighting and defeating the wild Onix; how an ornery Golbat attacked their Master and began draining the life from his shoulder; and how he killed it with a single Aura Sphere, and how the same Aura Sphere exploded, causing the cave-in of Victory Road. He recalled how he tried to save their Master from falling off the cliff face; how he covered Joshua's body with his own, protecting him from the falling rocks, and eventually breaking free of their stone prison aftermath of the collapse. Everything up to releasing Luxray was told in extraordinary detail, leaving absolutely nothing out of the story, out of respect for their Trainer, and respect for Torterra, whom Lucario expected would make sense of the situation and come up with the best plan for what they should do next. Every Pokémon in the family was listening intently, each of them needing to understand what had happened to their friend, needing to know who to blame for this crime.

Not a word was spoken among them when he was finished, soaking in the information, processing what had happened to result in all this chaos. Telling the story had winded Lucario worse than he expected; normally he could run for hours at a steady pace without losing his wind, but telling a simple story had exhausted him to the point where he had trouble standing. He was beaten to a much worse condition than he thought.

"Anyone got any ideas?" Golduck asked, surprisingly.

"You're the psychic," Honchkrow replied bitterly. Dark-types and Psychic-types didn't get along so well in the wild. "You're super smart. You think of something."

"Now's most _definitely _not the time, Honchkrow," Torterra intervened sternly, stopping that confrontation before it had a chance to start. "We need to think this through rationally, and it'd be better for all of us if we didn't waste our energy fighting." He turned to Golduck, his eyes weak and wrought with despair. "Golduck, I know our Master taught you Teleport once. Do you still know it? Maybe we can use it to get out of here."

Looking into those eyes made it all the more harder for her to answer. "No, Torterra…Master had me forget it when he taught Honchkrow how to fly to places we'd already visited. I'm sorry."

Torterra turned to Honchkrow, ready to ask her the obvious question, but she knew what it was before he could ask it. "There's usually not enough space in caves for me to fly, and even in here, it'd still be suicide, between all the bats and how unstable the cave is. Sorry, but I can't help you here."

"Flareon," Torterra called, gaining the fiery dog's attention. "Back when you were an Eevee, Master had you dig us a way out of caves when the going got tough. You wouldn't be able to still do that, would you?"

She continued to sit next to her Master, tenderly licking and cleaning his face, in an attempt to keep busy; and she earnestly thought it was helping him out of his coma and improving his condition. "I'm sorry, Boss," she replied without turning. "But Master had me forget how to do that too, for the same reason." Admitting it didn't help her feel any better.

Torterra was getting nervously flustered, and desperately faced Lucario, who was now sitting down, leaning against a wall with his eyes closed, still gasping for breath. Torterra knew it was an awful idea to ask Lucario to do any more work in his state, but times were helplessly desperate. He recalled that Riolu knew how to dig his way underground a while back as well, so there was a slight chance that he could provide a means of escape for them. "Lucario–"

"No."

The large tortoise was speechless. He glanced at Honchkrow, who, feeling guilty, sat on her knees with her head turned downward, ashamed to look at the others. It wasn't her choice to be the pack mule of the group, and it was beyond both her own foresight and her Master's that a situation like this would ever occur, but still, they couldn't escape the scenario because of her previous usefulness.

"Wait, I have an idea," Golduck said, standing and reaching for her Master's backpack. It had fallen off when Joshua fell off the cliff and landed in a small crevice made by a trio of rocks, which protected it from the cave-in and made it easy to spot when the ordeal was over. She willed the long, metallic, rope-like safety device to open when opening the bag manually proved difficult. "Master would sometimes use this long string-like thing to get himself out of caves and other tight spots when situations were critical. I think he called it an 'Escape Rope'? Maybe we can use it to get ourselves out of here." She sifted through some of the bag's contents for a short while, pushing her slimy pads between numerous bottles with vitamins, unused Poké Balls, and other randomly assorted items she had never seen before. Finally, she found what she was looking for: a long, light-brown, velvety rope coiled tightly around itself a few times. "I got it!" she yelled, lifting her prize above her head to show the others.

She brought it back down to examine it more closely, and quickly uncoiled the rope to its full length, going several metres from end to end. But nothing happened.

"Get it to work," Luxray said impatiently.

Golduck was confused. "I…" she stammered, whipping the rope a few times along the ground, tossing it to and fro, wrapping it around objects and herself. She tried using a little telekinesis on it, assorting it into various shapes in the air, all in a vain effort to get it to work. "I don't understand," she sighed, trying again and again. "I _know _it works; I've seen it work!"

"It just looks like a regular rope to me, Golduck," Flareon said, displeased.

This provoked Golduck to try harder and faster. "But I…!"

"Save your strength," Torterra called sadly, recognizing the futility quickly. Defeated, Golduck willed the rope off to the side, discarding the useless piece of equipment to the elements of the cave.

"Well," Torterra began. They were running out of options. "It looks like there's no 'easy fix' out of this one. Let's recap the entire situation: first, and most importantly, our Master is…incapacitated." Torterra always thought best when he reviewed his scenario and all the possible positions and outcomes of it. It helped visibly during battles, though he moved a little slower when he thought. "We can't rely on him this time. This time, he's the one relying on us. We can't let him down now.

"We're stuck in the middle of Victory Road – apparently the most violent of caves in the…what did he call it?" He asked himself, trying to remember what their Master had called the mass of land they lived on. He wasn't so good at the human language.

"Province," Lucario replied. He understood the human language front to back, though speaking it himself was a little impossible.

"That's right, thank you. We're stuck in Victory Road, the most violent of caves in the 'province', and the recent cave-in has made accurately backtracking through the cave difficult. We can't fly out, we can't teleport out, and we can't dig our way out. We have a wide variety of human tools and equipment to use, but we have no idea how to use them.

"The way I see it," he began to conclude, "we have three options. The first option is, we sit and wait. We tend to Master the best we can and wait for help to arrive from the humans."

"That could take weeks," Honchkrow replied, keeping her 'fedora' tipped. Not to be the naysayer of the bunch (although it was difficult not being satirical, being a Dark-type – they had peculiar senses of humour), but to pitch in being the voice of reason. Forming a plan without weighing in both the pros and cons would be a very, very bad idea. "If they come at all. Master only stocked up on enough food to last us for one, and that's being overly optimistic."

"On the other paw," Flareon added, "they wouldn't leave one of their own people stranded in this cave for so long, would they? Maybe they're already working on digging us a way out, to free all the other Trainers who got caught in the cave, and there must have been, what, twenty, thirty other Trainers here in Victory Road? There's no way they'd just leave them all in here."

"There are no other humans," Lucario said sadly. "They either got out or died."

Flareon wasn't about to ask how Lucario knew that for _certain_ – she didn't know anything about this 'Aura' thing that Lucario always went on about, and it had helped prove him right on numerous occasions and make her look like a fool. "But _they _don't know that for certain, do they? For all they know, not everyone got out, and they're still alive somewhere in here. Not to say they are, but my point is, the people on the outside might think there are still people in here alive, so they'll start digging."

"Actually," Torterra interrupted, "waiting in here might not be such a good idea, after all. Our second option is to carry our Master the remainder of the way through Victory Road."

"And why does that make waiting for help not a good idea, Boss?"

"Remember what our Master told us last night, at supper time. He had no idea how far into Victory Road we were. In his very words, 'it could only be a few hours, but it could also be a few days' until we hit the end. And the cave-in might've made it entirely impossible to even reach the other end, as far as we know: perhaps the mouth of the cave collapsed, or some bridge was destroyed.

"It's also taken us two days to get as far as we have. Consider waiting here for humans to arrive when we could be squarely in the centre of the cave. Let's say it'd only take one day to get to where we are; their Pokémon could be much stronger, and they themselves could know the entire layout of the cave as if they lived in it. But with the paths destroyed and with rubble blocking their way – oh, and the cave is still in an unstable condition, so blasting their way through wouldn't be a good idea either – it'd still take them far too long to find a human they have no way of knowing is alive. And we can't even begin to gauge how long it would take to get from the other end of the cave to here, since we don't know how large the cave itself is."

Torterra's logic wasn't doing much to boost the morale of the team, and Honchkrow openly scolded him for it. "Thanks for telling us that we're on our own out here, 'Boss'," she spat. "We can't wait here because we'll die before the humans find us, if they're even so kind to be looking. We can't finish the cave because, chances are, we'll die before we find the end of the cave, if it even exists at all now. Your obvious last option, to carry our Master back to the beginning of the cave, is just as suicidal as the other two: the paths are destroyed and the cave is destroyed, and as a result of both, we have no way to tell for certain which way is the right way; our two-day trip could last us five days! In fact, for all we know, the _entrance_ has been caved in as well! Thank you, Torterra, thank you for telling us that we're doomed any way we look at this, and for telling us how we're doomed and how we can't do anything about it except wait here and starve!"

Luxray nearly fried the chicken where she stood for yelling at Torterra like that, but the tortoise shook his head. "You Dark-types need to brighten up," he replied calmly. "All of you seem to think about is how the world is coming to an end every Thursday. It's not as simple as just sitting here and rotting." He took a few steps towards Joshua, looking over the human with distraught eyes. As brave and calm as he sounded speaking to Honchkrow, he needed a reminder telling him why she was wrong. "Waiting for help is a bad idea. Finishing the cave is probably a worse idea. Backtracking through the cave is not a great idea. I'll admit that our situation looks pretty poor at a first glance, but," he paused, angrily staring the bird in the eyes, "if you have any better ideas, Honchkrow, I'd certainly like to hear them. We don't have a lot of options, so I say we use the one that gives us a fighting chance to survive."

Honchkrow was not unused to the feeling of being challenged by Torterra to 'do better', but this time, she had to admit that he was right. Walking the way they came seemed like the most logical of steps in their scenario. She was better at thinking cynically and seeing the negatives of plans, so she usually wound up shooting down her own ideas when challenged to think of something better. She wasn't very good at plan-making, admittedly.

"We vote." Torterra said with an attitude of finality, when he realized Honchkrow was not going to take him up on his offer. "We vote for which of the three plans to use. Everyone in a circle."

Lucario forced himself to his feet, obeying the commanding Alpha of the pack; Flareon removed herself from her fallen Master's chest to join the circle; Golduck picked herself up to take the closest open position; Luxray reluctantly removed himself from the watchful view of the cave, prying his eyes away from the predator Golbat and the aggressive Fighting- and Rock-types strewn about the cave; and Torterra and Honchkrow remained where they stood, letting the others come to them.

"Everyone for the first option – 'staying and waiting for the humans to help us' – raise a paw, pad or wing." Torterra glanced around the circle. No one had responded to the option.

"Everyone for the second option – 'carry Joshua to the end of Victory Road' – raise a paw, pad or wing." Again, no one made a move to cast their vote.

"Everyone for the final option – 'carry Joshua to the beginning of Victory Road' – raise a paw, pad or wing." Flareon and Luxray raised their front left paws off the ground; Lucario and Golduck raised their arms slightly, casting their votes; and Honchkrow didn't hesitate to stretch her left wing over the Golduck standing to her side. Torterra had also raised his front foot slightly, clearly putting a bit of effort behind the action. "Well, it's decided then."

"We each take turns carrying Master, switching frequently," Luxray said, adding to the plan. "That way, only one of us has to work at a time, while the others rest. We'll be able to make our strength stretch longer that way."

"Agreed," Torterra replied. "If one of us gets tired, we all rest. No weak links. Otherwise, we keep moving; don't expect much food, and we're not going to stop for a full sleep at all. Whenever we rest, one of us keeps watch over the rest of us, in case some wild Pokémon gets uppity and tries to start something. Watchmen rotate every rest stop."

"We should take Master's bag, too," Golduck remembered, reaching for where she last left it. "Just in case there's anything in there we can use later, or if Master wakes up, he'll have all his things with him. He'll know what to do with it, if that happens."

"Good idea," said Torterra, genuinely pleased with how the plan was falling together through the group effort. "Golduck, wrap its straps around this tree I have on my shell. It won't need to be shared like Master himself." She obeyed and gingerly wrapped the shoulder straps of the bag around the strong tree growing off the tortoise's back. "Speaking of which, I'm the strongest of all of us: I should carry Master first, followed by Golduck and Luxray, to even out the dispersion. Honchkrow will go after them – she should have no trouble, considering she flies him all over the 'province' all the time – and Lucario will carry him last before rotating through again."

"What about me, Boss?" asked Flareon, a little hurt that she was so casually forgotten.

"Flareon, you can't carry Master; you're too small. He'd never be able to stay on you." This hurt Flareon down to her core: her Master always told her that she was one of the strongest in the group, that her size was never an issue when facing off against opponent Pokémon, but now, when she was needed the most, her size was the biggest factor.

With careful help from Lucario and Golduck, they eventually placed Joshua onto Torterra's shell, in such a position that he should be comfortable in his sleep, minding all his bruises and dislocations. The bag was secured onto the branches of the tortoise's tree, and, with one final, shuddering breath, the group began their adventure through Victory Road anew.


	3. Chapter 3

Backtracking through Victory Road had begun somewhat smoothly. Paths were difficult to locate underneath all the rubble of the rocks, and once they found themselves going in a circle because of it, but for the most part, it was a test of patience, which they found they had in spades. Conversations were kept at a bare minimum, barring calls of 'go faster', 'wait up', and 'this way'. Flareon led the group; being the most 'neutral' of the types among them, she'd have no problem dealing with confused Fighting-types and Dark-types, and the occasional Steel-type. They thankfully had few encounters with wild Pokémon anyway, but every time a Machoke or Graveler became aggressive, the attack was dealt with quickly and mercilessly: on Torterra's advice, drawing fights out would only weaken them all. To hell with the 'one-on-one' rule of Pokémon Training. They weren't just fighting for their survival, which was more than enough reason to deal with any and every attack as efficiently as possible.

An overall uneventful hour-and-a-half of travelling brought them to their first serious obstacle: a small natural archway connecting the lower level had collapsed from the cave-in, blocking their path to the lower levels. The individual debris was small and could be handled physically, but there was a bit of a concern determining who would be doing the moving. Lucario could move them himself without the aid of a 'hidden' machine, but Torterra didn't want him to be strained at all in his condition, and insisted on an alternative.

"Golduck could use Rock Smash," suggested Honchkrow. Their Master had insisted that Psyduck learn Rock Smash; at the time, the valuable 'hidden' move saw more use than any other attack available, and Psyduck was the only one capable of learning it among her quadruped friends. He simply never had a Move Tutor have her forget it to make room for something else, claiming that it was just easier for him to remember who had what this way. It was a fallible logic.

"Actually, she should save her strength for the lakes coming up…Golduck, you'll have to be ferrying all of us across the lakes, one at a time, when we get there. I want you to be at full strength when we do."

Golduck had been thinking of that as well. Ferrying their Master was easy as pie: it was one human, weighing a bit more than she did (though she was a powerful Water-type, and in the water he was a featherweight), and the other Pokémon were in their compact Poké Balls, each weighing only a few grams, at most. Lifting Lucario and Luxray should be just as easy; ferrying Flareon would be difficult, knowing her 'allergy' of water; and Honchkrow wouldn't need a ride, she could just fly over the lakes. It was carrying the 700-pound Torterra she was worried about.

"I could use Strength, Boss," Flareon offered, already flexing her calves, getting ready to bust her way through that blockade without a moment's notice. "I could have us through there faster than you can say 'That's a great idea, Flareon!'."

"While that was actually my next thought, I don't think you should do it either, Flareon, for the same reason. We're going to be seeing a lot of the same throughout the cave; I'm not comfortable with either of you using your energy so soon."

Honchkrow sighed irritably. "While we all appreciate your attempts at energy conservation, Torterra, you're starting to get a little _too_ picky. It's one or the other; either Golduck breaks the blockade, or Flareon does. Both of them are going to have to show some muscle eventually."

"I agree with Honchkrow," Luxray said, to the tortoise's side. "And I think Flareon should be the one to do it. You're right that Golduck will need to be as strong as she can be when we get to the water, and Flareon's not going to be getting any stronger."

"I think so too," Lucario added, furthering swaying their acting leader's decision.

With a sigh, Torterra relented. "'That's a great-'" True to her word, with one titanic thrust using her whole body, the debris covering the mouth of the archway was cleared in a single strike before Torterra could even finish his sentence. The path was clean and free, and Flareon stood proudly in the arch, supremely satisfied with her work. He briefly considered scolding her for putting on such an arrogant display, but quickly reconsidered – getting it done faster would've probably taken less energy to do, and they could use every spare second they got. Plus, he _did _sorta dare her to do it…

The path was difficult to follow in the aftermath, in both the sense that it was difficult to find, and in the sense that it was difficult to even walk across thanks to all the rocks and fallen boulders. Wild Medicham were increasing in numbers and were keen on trying to attack the weakened Lucario near the rear of the pack, who travelled between Torterra in front and Honchkrow bringing up the rear, but a quick Night Slash from the intimidating crow sent them all reeling before they had the chance to even get off an attack.

Things were going steadily for the next half-hour of travel, until Flareon was eventually blindsided by a deeply confused and very furious Floatzel, who had wandered too far from the lakes in search of food amidst the catastrophe. Flareon was hit with a powerful Aqua Jet and was sent flying into a nearby boulder; surprised by the attack and stunned by the collision with the rock, she briefly had trouble staggering back to her feet.

The Floatzel was immediately met with another attack from the enraged Luxray, clamping down hard onto the otter's neck and releasing several thousand volts of electricity through its body. It immediately went limp in the lion's jaw; killed from the sheer power of the attack coursing through its vulnerable body through the incisors breaching its thin skin.

"Flareon, are you alright?!" Golduck yelled, dashing after the dog and skidding to a stop just in front of her ally. She helped Flareon to her feet, placing a tender pad on either side of her torso.

"Nah, I'm fine," she replied, her voice slightly strained. "It's gonna take more than a single Floatzel to take me down, you know that." Still, that attack _did _hit pretty hard…she checked each of her joints just in case, to make sure nothing was broken. "Is it dead?" she asked, noticing that the otter had gone limp in her hero's jaws.

Luxray opened his jaw wide, unceremoniously dropping the deceased Pokémon harshly onto the ground. "Yeah," he replied, licking the watery blood from his lips. "Not what I was going for, but, when you mess with my Flareon, you get what you get." He knew saying something like that specifically would invigorate Flareon and give her a big helping of strength and courage – and it wasn't untrue, necessarily.

Honchkrow laughed openly at the event – not at the corny remark, but at the _event_. "Nice work, Luxray!" she cawed, running the tips of her feathers across her 'fedora' in glee. Torterra wanted to congratulate Luxray on protecting a team-mate so quickly and forcefully, but he was unused to death, and took his time stepping over the wet corpse. He instead simply grunted his approval, staring as straight ahead as he could.

"We must be close to the lakes," Golduck said, looking over the dead Floatzel. "A Floatzel wouldn't have wandered this far away from its natural habitat. And," she paused, looking over the telltale floatation sac running around the otter's body, "since this one is a female, she probably had some young to look after, so she wouldn't have left them very far behind."

Golduck was right – it only took another ten minutes of walking before they came across the lower floor; the sound of running water smoothly filling the team's ears, and the sight of the glass-flat water reflecting the visage of the roof and the natural light of the luminescent stones giving the room an eerie sense of calm and serenity. The occasional shout from the odd Floatzel rang through the air, calling either for family lost in the cataclysm or warning others of nearby dangers and whatnot. If it weren't for the bloodthirsty Golbat, the utter lack of vegetation, and the endless day of the cave, this area could be confused for a type of Elysium.

There were at least three full lakes of water in the area, with numerous ponds dotting most of the remaining dry land, and the gentle crashing of three small waterfalls draining the 'upper' lakes into the 'lower' ones adding to the other sparse sounds of the room. There was a semblance of order to this room before the cave-in, but now, where there were a few patches of dry land for Trainers to rest and battle on, there were almost none: the room had flooded quite a bit thanks to the reshaping of the room, sinking the land, leaving even fewer areas for dry rest. Thankfully, at least, this also meant that many of the lakes were shallow enough to safely wade through. Also, the waterfalls had each collapsed slightly after the eruption, easing their slant and transforming them more into rapids than they were waterfalls.

With the reshaping of the room, following the path they had taken the night before, step for step, would be impossible. From where they stood, the second entrance into the next room was clearly visible, but the 'safest' path there was eschewed with impossibly large boulders and lakes several stories deep. But by no means was reaching the other exit _impossible – _just _difficult_.

Torterra hummed in deep thought, concentrating on mapping out the safest route to the other side. Several sets of rapids led immediately into dead ends, the paths blocked off by walls, barricades of boulders, or sometimes just one really big one. The centre of the room, however, led to the 'lower' area after a seemingly calm set of rapids, compared to the other sets. The path leading to the pool housing the rapids was just barely wide enough to hold Torterra, as well. Things looked simple enough, so far.

"Over there," he motioned, nodding his head to the centre set of rapids in the room. "That looks like our best bet to getting down."

Flareon continued to lead the way, though she soon started walking much slower than earlier; her earlier bravado quickly sapped by the very sight of the water. She wasn't so used to being this close to water, and before, her Master would simply recall her into her warm, safe Poké Ball before he attempted any crossing. Such an escape was unavailable now, and soon she was going to have to _swim _across it! Well, Golduck would be doing the swimming, but still!

The fear plagued her conscience, slowing her pace to a crawl as she continued staring at the menacing glass-smooth liquid. She was used to drinking the stuff, that wasn't so bad, but she never imagined, in her young life, that she'd have to _submerge _herself into it. The idea of herself being covered, from head to tail, in the transparent, tasteless, odourless chemical, like a kind of _slime_, all of it _attaching _itself to every part of _her_, and having it cling to her fur for _hours_ when, _if _they get out at the other side –

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she was lightly nudged forward by the larger Luxray. Her panicked eyes quickly darted to his, and before she could register who it was that she was talking to, she blurted "whatdoyouwant?!" a little louder than anyone would've preferred.

"I want you to go faster," Luxray replied calmly, slightly amused at her reaction though genuinely concerned about how she was faring with the idea that she'd have to conquer her fears a little earlier than she probably would've liked. "I know you're afraid of the water, Flareon-"

"WhosaidI'mafraidI'mnotafriadofanythingLuxrayifanythingI'mmorethanready–"

Luxray shushed her by putting a paw over her rapid maw. "But we're all here, and we'll all help you get across, I promise. We'll be on the other side and out of Victory Road before you know it, you'll see." Flareon relaxed, listening to and believing each one of his words. It was difficult not to trust that big, hunky lion whenever he promised her anything.

The sound of water sloshing around legs was heard behind the group, and all of them turned to see what it was. Lucario, still injured but eager to taste water, had mustered enough strength to wade in knee-deep into the water and immediately fall forward when the water was deep enough. He submerged his face, taking in a mouthful of water, and brought it back out, spitting out mud, cleaning his mouth of all the dirt he hadn't had a chance to wash out since the cave-in. Unsatisfied, he submerged his face again, this time staying under to take a few large mouthfuls into his gullet, letting the cold water cleanse his wounds inside and out.

"Lucario has the right idea," Torterra said, breaking the awkward silence. "This might be the last time we actually see any water outside of this room, so it would be a good idea to take in as much as we can before leaving it. But," he quickly tacked on, "not until we get to the 'lower' area. We don't want to make ourselves too heavy for Golduck to lift."

Golduck was confident that she could carry two, maybe three or even four Luxrays while in the water, but she was warmed by her leader's thoughtful charity nonetheless.

"When he's done," Torterra restarted, "we move over to that waterfall near the centre of the room. It looks like it's the only one that won't lead us to a dead end, and it looks relatively tame compared to the other waterfalls to boot. Then, Golduck, you have to…you have to carry each of us down the waterfall, one at a time, so we can get to the lower level of the floor."

"I understand, Torterra," the duck replied, her tone a little somber. She didn't need to ask the question everyone else was thinking: how was Torterra going to get down? He was far too large and heavy for her to carry.

"I'll go last," he continued, intent on buying time for them to come up with a plan for his heavy-set self to get down. "Luxray and Flareon should go first, followed by Lucario. Honchkrow, you can just fly down, right?"

"Yeah," she replied.

"Wait a second," Lucario said, lifting his face from the water, having received his fill. "If Honchkrow can just fly down to the lower levels, why can't she carry one of us on her way down?"

"Yeah!" Flareon bellowed with indignation, having found a chance to stay as far away from water as she could, and she was hell-bent on keeping it. "You can fly some of us down to the lower levels, no sweat!"

"No, I'm afraid she can't," Torterra interrupted quietly.

"Oh, come on! Yes she can!" Flareon pushed. "Yes you can, Honchkrow!"

"Flareon, look up at the cave's ceiling, and tell me what you see," the large crow replied. Flareon had a feeling that her hopes were about to get hopelessly dashed and was hesitant to comply, but, begrudgingly, she turned her head skyward, looking into the bright luminescent rocks and stalactites that protruded from the rocky ceiling.

"Um…" she uttered. "I see rocks."

"And?"

"…spikes? Rocky spikes?" Honchkrow knew she knew what she was looking for, but was deliberately avoiding the question in a frantic hope to stay away from the water.

"You know what I see, Flareon?" Honchkrow pressed, her irritation slowly rising but underplayed. "I see Golbat. Lots and lots of Golbat. And they'll probably start feeding in a few hours."

"Big deal!" Flareon insisted, her fur beginning to flay in confusion. "You can fight lots of Golbat at once! I've seen you do it! And you can do it some more!"

"But I've never had anyone clinging to my feathers when I fought the Golbat. You've also seen how intense those fights can get, and how fast I have to go in order to keep up with the rest of them; how violent my swings, flaps and dive-bombs have to be. There's no possible way anyone can hold on to me when I'm fighting in against two or three bats at once. And besides, with the extra weight, I'll be as clumsy as a Slowpoke."

"Then, then," Flareon retorted, looking around the room for anything Honchkrow might have overlooked that she could use to her advantage. "Couldn't you just fly low enough to not be seen by the Golbat? It can't be too hard."

"Look again, Flareon," Honchkrow said, extending her right wing to show the dog her next point. "I can fly just over the waterfalls down to the lower levels, but the gap between the rocky outcroppings that the waterfalls flow through is too narrow for my wingspan; I'm going to have to fly sideways, and even _with _no burden, that's going to be really hard for me to complete safely. I could fly directly over the outcroppings, but that'd catapult me straight into the Golbat. Then there are the Machoke, Medicham and Graveler taking up all the dry space. Thanks to my dual-types, I'm not exactly the safest pick against Fighting-types, and I'm weak against Rock-types directly. And those Graveler have a delightful tendency to explode at the slightest inclination."

Flareon refused to give up. "But–"

"How would you even grip her feathers, Flareon?" Torterra asked. He hated seeing her so frazzled, but to let her keep stringing herself along would be even worse. "Master had two flexible hands, but you only have one stiff jaw. Even climbing onto Honchkrow would be a hazard."

Flareon was completely put off from the idea once her 'Boss' began to reject it. It left her sour and spiteful, though she played it off with a furious calmness. "I want to go first, then," she said, surprisingly. "I just want to get this stupid thing out of the way."

"That's fine," Torterra replied. "Honchkrow, you may as well go now. Make sure there are no predators near the mouth of our rapid's exit." Honchkrow nodded and was about to take flight, when she was interrupted by the turtle again. "Before you go, though, you should take Master's bag. It'll get down there safest with you."

"Ah, that's a good idea," Golduck added, already hopping onto their leader's shell and undoing the bag from the branches it was hanging from. "You can at least carry this in your beak; it's light and small, so it shouldn't interfere with your flying."

Honchkrow didn't say anything – no point in arguing with a good idea, honestly. She took the bag into her beak by the strap on the top, and wordlessly took flight. She skimmed the waters with her talons, and soon she was weaving into the narrow walls of the rapids. Elegantly though without finesse, she easily soared past the first few upturned boulders before vanishing from sight.

Golduck slowly slipped herself off the shell and into the shimmering waters, ready to begin her job ferrying team-mates from waterway to waterway. Reflexively she began to swim upright – whenever Joshua rode his Pokémon across water, he'd get into the water with her and jump onto her back, piggyback style. Flareon wasn't about to do that, though, and she awkwardly positioned herself face-down into the water close to the shore, inviting the canine to hop aboard whenever she was ready.

As much as Flareon tried to convince herself otherwise, however, she was not ready. She stood stiff as a board, watching Golduck just float there, face-down in the water, _as if she had already drowned_. She knew that that couldn't be possible at all – Water-type Pokémon _can_ drown, but it'd require a bit of effort thanks to their aptitude in the water – but the imagery was far too convincing for her liking. So she stood, unmoved, her expression blank, trying to decide when would be a good time to get onto this living raft of potentially watery death.

A noticeable amount of time had passed, and Flareon had only done as little as blink and breathe. Golduck was patient and occasionally lifted her head for air (not that she needed it, but she didn't want to freak out Flareon by not breathing any longer than she could). Lucario had since waded in from the water, and Torterra and Luxray simply stood, awaiting the brave dog's decision.

"Um, Flareon?" Luxray asked, curious on his best friend's behaviour.

"I'll move when I feel like it, don't rush me," she immediately snapped, this time fully aware that it was Luxray she was speaking to. Although she knew he was right: looking at the water, attempting to will it away with her mind, was not going to work. She sighed heavily, and with a moment's hesitation, she leapt onto Golduck's back, immediately digging her claws into the rubbery flesh. It wasn't enough to puncture the Pokémon's tough hide, designed to take the strongest of water pressures naturally capable, but it was still quite uncomfortable; Golduck squirmed and shook slightly, attempting to convey to Flareon that she was hurting her without lifting her head, but, since the pain did not subside, it was to no avail.

"Get going, Golduck," Flareon yelped impatiently, determined to just get this over and done with. The command sounded garbled to the duck, with her head being under the water, but she understood it well enough: a strong kick with her legs and a powerful swing with her arms, and they were off, gliding seamlessly through the water, heading towards the waterfall's edge.

Flareon stumbled slightly from the sudden surge; not because she was nervous (and she was), but because she was unused to the feeling of something moving under her feet at such a pace. She quickly got a grip on herself and stood firm on Golduck's back, staring furiously at the water, foolishly hoping that looking intimidating at the surface would force the water away from her.

That gave her an idea. She was a Fire-type, right? Couldn't she just 'roast' herself to such a high temperature that all the water around her would just evaporate before it could even come close? She had risen her own body temperature to hell-blazingly high temperatures before (fighting some Grass-types who loved using Vine Whip, for instance), and though it drained her to keep it up, she could ride out this waterfall like that, no problem.

Well, except, Golduck would fry alive almost instantly. Damn, and she thought she had thought of something foolproof this time for sure.

Golduck was purposely taking her time getting to the waterfall. She could swim so much faster than this, even with some 'luggage', but she didn't want to risk spooking Flareon. Slowly and softly was the way to go for this one.

Getting to the waterfall was fortunately uneventful. Flareon couldn't stop shaking in her nervousness, and was constantly glancing to either side of her 'raft' whenever it lobbed under her weight or from some errant ripples in the water. The water quickly picked up speed and strength, however, and soon enough, they were both tumbling down the rapids of the waterfall at an unimaginable pace, helplessly swinging from side to side, being tossed like vegetables in the relentless crashes of waves of the uninhibited water.

Or, at least, to Flareon. They were going down the waterfall, but they were only going at a jogging pace, and it was only slightly rougher than the glass over the upper-level's ponds. The dog took the time from her panic to note that they were actually going slower than the water, and that Golduck wasn't moving as quickly as she could be. In fact, her movements seemed extremely laboured, and she was tensed all throughout her arms, legs and back. It was taking a tremendous amount of effort, Flareon realized, but Golduck was doing her best to slow their descent, to make the trip down as manageable as possible for her. She was thankful to the brave swimmer for it.

The rapids picked up sternly halfway down the waterfall, and Golduck was having too much trouble keeping herself slow and steady down the way. Her already Herculean output had topped itself out, and it took all her effort to avoid crashing into the walls and outcropped rocks that had shifted or fallen into their path. Flareon was already wet around her ankles, and it was killing her to know that she was probably only going to get wetter.

The strain had forced Golduck to expel too much air too quickly, and soon she had to come up for a breath. The action required her to stop putting so much force behind her swimming, and her one gasp of air sped them up drastically, sending them straight into an upturned boulder in the water. By herself, she could avoid the boulder without a second thought (possibly even leap over it if she was feeling bold enough). With her Master, avoiding the boulder would be as simple as a few strokes, at most, and he didn't mind getting wet. But with Flareon, it required almost every muscle working all at once to slow them enough so that they could swing by the boulder widely enough for Flareon to get by without getting wet. For a split second Golduck considered using her telekinesis to lift the boulder out of the way, or to slow the water around her enough to swim with more ease and finesse, but either action would require more focus than she was capable at the moment.

With a pair of Olympian kicks and swings, they managed to avoid a head-on collision with the boulder easily enough, but the splash-back of the water crashing against the boulder found its way onto Flareon. It wasn't unlike standing outside in a moderately heavy rain, but even still, Flareon nearly jumped out of her skin – and nearly ridding Golduck of hers. The violent thrust by the dog deeply punctured Golduck's shoulders, and soon blood was letting into the water freely. What's worse, she could hardly swim with her arms now.

Although the rapids remained violent until the bottom of the waterfall, the remainder of the trip was blissfully short. Soon they were both floating in the relative calmness of the lower-level's giant pond, quickly approaching dry land with Honchkrow there, ready to greet them, bemused at the entire sight of watching them both tumble down the slide.

Even with Flareon's claws still firmly planted into Golduck's skin, she swam quickly for dry land, using her legs more than her arms. Flareon was just as eager to get back and leapt desperately for the dock when they were close enough. Honchkrow ushered her away from the water, mindful of the dog's instant desire to shake-dry her fur.

"You should have seen you two go down that waterfall," Honchkrow cawed, giggling to herself lightly, remembering Flareon's horrified looks as they shucked down the water at high speed. "Your face was priceless, Flareon! Especially after you got soaked to the bone. You looked like you were ready to drop a log!"

"Very funny, 'bird'," Flareon spat, lying flat on her belly, refusing to stand and leave her precious ground even the littlest bit. "I'm sure it must've been a laugh-riot, you jerk. You're lucky you have wings, you know that? I'd gladly give up my fur for feathers if it meant I never, ever had to do that again."

"No, I'm just lucky I don't suffer from hydrophobia. Trust me, actually: having wings would be – holy crap, Golduck!" She interrupted herself mid-sentence to focus on the bleeding Golduck, noticing that her arms were slightly limp, as she climbed onto land. Dark crimson blood dripped freely down both her arms and crept slowly down to her wrists. "How did this happen?!"

"Didn't you see it?" Golduck asked, looking back and seeing that, from where she stood, she could see the entire length of the slanted waterfall all the way to the top. "We crashed into a boulder. It was awfully jagged on its one side; it tore my shoulder open when we hit it."

"That's bull," the bird spat, looking over her wounds. "These are claw marks. A jagged rock would've torn you open, not sliced." Golduck shot Honchkrow a furious look, and before she could respond, she saw Flareon's expression: tears already welling up, a look begging for mercy and practically screaming apology when she realized that she crippled one of her best friends. "Oh."

Flareon immediately jumped to her feet, ready to pounce onto Golduck's feet and start grovelling at them – when she stopped herself mid-launch, fearful that maybe Golduck hated her for it and was going to strike her when she was in reach. "Oh…oh, Golduck, I…oh, Arceus, I'm so sorry! I, I didn't mean to…we were swimming and tossing and turning and everything was just so blurry, I didn't think I was, I was…oh man, Golduck, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…!"

"I get it, Flareon, you're sorry," Golduck smiled. She was calm and collected, even when she was bleeding rather profusely from her shoulders, the blood beginning to collect in the palms of her pads and trickling down to the dirt below them. "Don't worry, these aren't going to kill me. I'm a lot tougher than that, don't you know. I'll be fine, and I accept your apology; you were scared, things were going too fast, I understand." Flareon was unconvinced – and Golduck being so calm and understanding about everything scared the _crap_ out of her.

"Actually, this shouldn't be a big deal," Honchkrow said, calming slightly at her newest brain wave. "We have Master's bag with us, and it's filled to the brim with all sorts of medicines for this exact purpose. Let's just use one of those."

Golduck shook her head sullenly. "Do you have any idea how to work one of those medicines?"

The crow began to reach for the backpack with her beak, but stopped just short at the question. "Sorry?"

"This was long before either of you two joined us, but way back when Master first started his adventure, he tried to have me hold a 'Potion', with the specific instruction to use it whenever I didn't feel so well. And I held it, believe me, but when I started losing the next battle, I didn't have the _foggiest_ idea how to use it. None of us know how to use anything man-made, in fact. Have you watched him use one of those things on us?" The dog and the bird stared, remembering their Master using the Potions on them repeatedly, but they both realized that neither of them knew how to operate it. "The fight had an unhappy ending," Golduck laughed, "but it taught us a valuable lesson. I'm worried that if we even try, we'll wind up breaking something."

Honchkrow sighed. It was worth a mention, at least. "Can you still swim with these wounds?" she asked. If Golduck couldn't, they'd be in serious trouble, and everyone knew it.

"Yeah," she half-lied. "I don't need as much sleep as the others, remember? 'Mind over matter' is my motto, and for us psychics, it's easier done than said, really. I'll just suppress the pain and the blood with some telekinesis and call it a day."

"Oh, come on," Honchkrow retorted, "that's seriously unhealthy and you know it. You can't just use your head to hide everything you don't like about yourself. We experience pain for a reason, you know."

"I know, but, Honchkrow…" she lowered her head and her voice, staring into the logical crow's eyes. "We're screwed if I can't, so I have to. If not for Luxray, Lucario or Torterra, then for Master. He'd push himself to the limit for each of us too."

Honchkrow didn't need to be reminded of that fateful day on Route 215 to know that Golduck was not exaggerating. Whenever she thought of her Master, she thought of that rainy day when they fought that brutal thug and that annoying yellow rat, which reminded her of just why she admired him as much as she did. "Yeah, I know."

"Just, you two do me a favour," finished Golduck, her telekinesis already stopping the blood and easing the pain, though not sealing the wounds. "Don't tell Torterra about it."

"We have to." Replied Honchkrow simply. "What if he asks you to do something where you have to be at one-hundred-percent? You wouldn't have the strength to do it."

"I think this requires me to be at one-hundred-percent, Honchkrow." She began to slip into the water.

"Okay, but what about battle? Since you're weaker then all of us now, you'll be a priority to defend, and Torterra can't direct us if he doesn't know the situation." Her reason had fallen on deaf ears; Golduck was already at the foot of the waterfall, and, taking a deep breath, she was gone, invisible under the foam and whitecaps of the rushing water.

Flareon, still sniffling and her eyes still a little wet, asked Honchkrow if she was going to tell Torterra about Golduck's injuries. On the one wing, Honchkrow was right about _needing_ to tell Torterra about it and her reasons why: she stood firmly and unmoving in that position. But on the other, there's no telling what Torterra would do to compensate for Golduck's weak link – or what he'll do or say to Flareon, for that matter. While it was rare, Torterra was _terrifying,_ even to Honchkrow, when he was furious.

"I don't know" was her reply.

"There she is now," Luxray called, snapping his team-mates to attention. Golduck came leaping up from the rapids and into her comrade's line of sight, elegant and seemingly full of energy.

"Sorry I took so long, boys," she called as she gently swam towards the shore, taking her time. "Just had a little talk with Honchkrow about what to do next, once we get everyone down."

"Ah," Torterra mumbled to himself. That Honchkrow can be a pain, he knew, but at least they both had one thing in common: they both thought of the future, even if they focused on different aspects. "And what about Flareon? How was her ride down?"

"Oh, terrifying," she replied, walking onto the shore. "She was yelling and hollering the whole time and refused to sit still. She got a little wet, it couldn't be helped, but she got down there alive and unhurt, otherwise."

"Good, good." It was always relaxing hearing good news, and considering the situation, good news was as cherished as diamonds. "Who should go down next? Let's not waste any time, now."

"Uh, I," Luxray replied immediately, as if he was specifically waiting for Torterra to ask that question. "I'll go down next. I think it'd be better for me to go while Golduck has a feel for carrying quadrupeds down the falls." It wasn't much of a reason, but he still felt that he should go before the injured Lucario and the heavy Torterra. It'd give them more time to think.

"I don't have a problem with that," the turtle said. "Lucario, do you have any problems with Luxray going next?"

Lucario was half asleep, resting his tired body against the nearby incline. "No, not really."

Torterra knew he wouldn't. He was usually very easy to get along with. "Golduck, stay and rest for a bit. We don't need you any more exhausted than you need to be."

She wasn't really tired – she was a Water-type. Doing stuff like this was part of what she was born to do. But, that logical Grass- and Ground-hybrid had a point: doing it so many times so quickly with varying loads will tax her in the long run. However, she was worried that the longer she stayed, the bigger the chance Torterra would see the holes in her shoulders, and would call the whole thing off in an effort to find another way down. "Nah, no can do, Torterra," she replied cheerily. She was a horrible actor. "The sooner we get through this, the sooner we find a way out of the cave, and the sooner we get Master some help."

Torterra was put off a little bit by her forwardness. "Well, that's true, but–"

"No 'buts!'" she insisted, getting out of the water and, careful not to show her back to Torterra, ushered the lion into the coastline. "I'm a Water-type, this stuff is cake to me. You guys are light as a feather to me in the water, so there's no point in waiting. I enjoy being in my natural habitat!"

Something just seemed so terribly _off _with Golduck. She was calm, logical and calculating: usual behaviour for Psychic-types, despite her not actually _being_ one. Why was she such in a huge rush to get back into the water? Was she hiding something? Had something gone wrong with Flareon's trip? Arceus-forbid, had something happened to _Flareon?_

Before he could demand an answer, however, she was already face down in the water, and Luxray had already 'boarded' his raft. _Humph_, he thought, _I'll talk to her when she comes back._

Luxray was much easier to carry than Flareon. He didn't mind getting a little wet at all, and he didn't constantly fidget and thrust his body whenever the slightest ripple came towards them. He was very calm, although understandably nervous about the trip down the waterfall. Everyone has doubts about their first trip swimming up or down a wall of raging water; even Golduck.

Getting to the mouth of the falls was smooth as smooth could be, and Luxray seemed relaxed when he finally got into a comfortable position, lying flat on Golduck's back. When the water picked up the pace and eventually became rocky and violent, however, his nerves of steel quickly evaporated, and his grip tightened around his boat's shoulders and waist. He buried his face between Golduck's shoulder blades, and, amidst all the destructive crashes of the water and the forceful waves into upturned rocks, he managed to catch a clear eyeful of Golduck's injuries. They had begun to bleed again, when her focus turned less from keeping her blood flow suppressed and more to focusing on getting to the foot of the waterfall in one piece. Which they eventually did; since Golduck didn't need to worry about keeping Luxray dry, the trip went by much faster this time around, and with much less physical strain on her part. The pool at the base of the falls welcomed them soon enough. Luxray jumped off Golduck once the water was calm and swam to the shore himself.

She had decided to stop at the beach where Honchkrow and Flareon had waited in patient silence for a quick breather. She still wasn't physically exhausted, but the pain in her shoulders came flooding back into her on her way down the falls. She knew it was impossible for Luxray to have missed the blood, but she wasn't about to start the conversation, and was hoping he wouldn't either.

"When did you get those injuries, Golduck?" he asked immediately after the formalities with the rest of his team-mates were over with. So much for that wish.

"I got them from a boulder I had crashed into when I was taking down Flareon," she replied simply, sticking to her guns. "I had underestimated the force of the water pressure coming over a ridge, and we were sent flying into a large rock that had fallen into the waterfall from the cave-in. Tore me up pretty good."

He had his suspicions. He was no expert, and he hadn't gotten a good enough look at the cuts himself, but he was half certain that those wounds couldn't have come from any stone. However, he had no reason to not believe her – she wasn't callous enough to lie about an injury, was she? "Alright, if you say so," he replied, the doubt almost dripping from his words. "You're going to tell Torterra about them, right?"

"I was, but not until everyone's down from the waterfall safely. I don't want him to worry and come up with be forced to think up some other plan just because of me."

That he did believe. Although he would agree with Torterra that they would need to think up something new with her condition, they couldn't afford the time or the energy otherwise.

"Speaking of which, how are we going to get him down?" It was Flareon's turn to speak. "He's way too huge and heavy for you to lift yourself, Golduck. He'd crush you like a Weedle."

"I'm more worried about our Master, personally," said Luxray. "He most certainly can't stay on Torterra during his trip down the falls. He probably couldn't go on Golduck alone...I wasn't scared of the water, and even I had trouble keeping myself clung onto her during the worst parts."

"Actually, I've been thinking about that too, and," Golduck paused, taking a breath to focus her thoughts back onto her wounds. "The best I could come up with was that...well, Lucario is going to come down next, right? My idea was to sandwich Master between the both of us. It's not the safest bet, but there's a real shot that it could work."

"I could think of a hundred different ways that could go wrong." Honchkrow seemed pleased, if only because this was her area of expertise. "You'll be submerged the whole time, and since Master can't lift his head in his comatose state, his face could slip under and he could drown. Lucario could lose his grip, since he would have to not only secure himself but a whole 'nother human as well. I'm sure a swimming Pokémon, an injured Pokémon and an unconscious human would be easy pickings for predators, especially those bats, and neither of you will be able to defend yourselves if that happens."

Honchkrow sighed heavily. "But, I can't think of anything better myself. Luxray's right; Master can't stay on Torterra for this. I think your plan is the only chance we have to actually getting him down."

Golduck smiled at Honchkrow. It was extremely difficult for them to agree on _anything_, so this was a lovely plus. "Do you have any ideas on getting Torterra down, Honchkrow?"

She thought for a moment. "Yeah, I've been toying with one idea. He can't be lifted, not in the water and certainly not in the air. And there is no 'dry route' down. The water's naturally shallow, right? And he's a damn _turtle_, for Arceus' sake. Can't he just _walk_ down? Walk straight down the rapids himself?"

That was a bold plan if Golduck ever heard one. Although it made sense; Torterra was, in fact, a tortoise, so he should be fine in the water. And, while even Fire-types could swim without any negative effects (provided they aren't in battle, of course), Torterra's Grass-type should counter his weakness to water as a Ground-type, so he should be in relative comfort in the water. "It'll be difficult for both of us," Golduck replied. She was naturally going to accompany their leader, regardless of whether or not they actually go through with this plan, "but it's actually a plausible idea. I'll ask him what he thinks when I get back up there."

She wasted no more time with talk. In a flash, she was back in the water, hopping her way back up the falls, the fresh blood on her arms carelessly washed away by the powerful tides.

"...and those are the plans," Golduck sighed. She had relayed the plans to get both Joshua and Torterra to the bottom of the waterfall to both Lucario and Torterra himself.

Torterra was flabbergasted at Honchkrow's wild thinking. Sure, he could swim – he'd be a poor turtle if he couldn't – but she wanted him to just _waltz _down the waterfall as if it were nothing?! And she was usually the one to find flaws in _good_ ideas. What had driven her to come up with such a risky plan? In his attempt to wrap his head around the very idea of walking down the waterfall himself, he forgot to ask Golduck what she was hiding since she had arrived previously.

"I'm fine with protecting our Master between us," Lucario told them, noticing the shocked looked on Torterra's face and breaking the silence. "If you go slowly, Golduck, it should be easy enough to handle. I've done it only a few hours ago; I can do it again."

"Awesome. Let's get Master off of Torterra, then." Golduck leaped up onto their acting leader's shell – Lucario climbed up, a little laboriously – and, just as they had placed him there earlier, gently lifted him off the shell and slowly onto the ground. They made sure his breathing body was facing the ceiling, and with Lucario lifting him the legs and Golduck lifting him by the torso, they made their way slowly back into the water. Golduck had turned herself around so that she was lifting with her back, which made it easier to submerge herself into the water.

Slowly and eventually, Lucario laid on Golduck awkwardly, wrapping his arms and legs around their Master and tightly around Golduck. He didn't feel especially secure since he wasn't gripping her with all he could be, but it was to be expected, he knew. He just hoped that it wouldn't be so bad going down the waterfall like this.

Going down the falls this way was even more difficult than with Flareon. Getting wet wasn't the problem, but keeping their Master's face above the water was. She had to go slowly and carefully, and with that quickly overriding her attention to her wounds on her shoulders, they began to flare up dramatically, and she soon found it to be maddeningly painful to keep her arms moving against the current like this. It showed in her effort to keep them from crashing into boulders and sinking too far below the water line; every now and again Lucario would have to give her a reminding bark or squeeze to keep themselves safe. Like with Luxray, the blood began to seep from her shoulders, which didn't go unnoticed.

Golduck felt as though she was going to pass out from the crushing pain in her back, but, mercifully, the foot of the falls was finally in sight. They spilled into the wading pool at the foot of the mountain, and she immediately went limp, relaxing her arms and concentrating her psychics on relieving the pain coursing through her bones. She wasn't completely senseless: and she was lightly kicking her padded feet towards the shore, but, even with her Master lying on her back and depending on her for safety, her current priority was to calm herself. The blood stopped dripping from her shoulders and her pain subsided, but all the same she felt like she was wading on the very edge of consciousness. She had never felt more exhausted in her life.

They all eventually washed up onto the shore – Lucario had been paddling along with his arms to speed them up, feeling safe enough to do so in the shallow, seamless water – and they were immediately assisted by the three others already waiting for them at the bottom. Lucario quickly got off his 'raft' and, with the help of the others, gently lifted their Master off of Golduck and laid him face up on the dirt shore. He was wet, and despite the harshness of the trip down the falls he remained unstirred in his sleep, but he was breathing, and without any further injuries.

Golduck, however, remained face down in the dirt, unable and unwilling to exert the effort necessary to lift herself. She laid half submerged in the water; her breathing was heavy and irregular; she felt dizzy and nauseous and she was about ready to lose her breakfast; using enough of her focus to keep herself from bleeding profusely proved unreasonably difficult, and eventually, she couldn't even keep that up. The thought of her actually dying right here – wet, exhausted, her blood painting the dirt around her – crossed her mind, but she was too tired to explore the possibility further.

She could hear her friends chattering a million miles away, although their voices were just kind of meshed and indecipherable to her right now. She felt someone pick her up by the armpits (much to her displeasure, when her shoulders began to sing terrible songs of pain), followed by something smaller and fluffier supporting her by the waist. Her lower body was lifted from the warm confines of the water and was chilled by the cold air that immediately replaced it. She felt thirsty – that was a sensation she hadn't felt in a while. She almost missed it.

Suddenly her ride was over, and she was placed back onto the dirty ground, face up. Her eyes were closed, and she wanted so badly to fall asleep, but she couldn't: she could feel slumber teasing her, mocking her that she couldn't catch it. She wanted it so badly, but it floated there, just beyond her reach.

Then there was a hard slap across her face, and the right side of her bill began to ache in pain; although really, her arms, legs and stomach were all exercised into a fine goo, and her shoulders were practically falling off her back, so why stop at her face? Her eyes remained closed and she remained blissfully ignorant of her assailant.

Another strike, this time on her left 'cheek'. Someone's awfully persistent. Against her better judgment, she opened her eyes to see who kept hitting her in the face. She wasn't mad – she had no energy to be mad – but she couldn't get to sleep if someone kept hitting her in the face, so, she figured, may as well see what they want.

Above her stood the towering Honchkrow, her wing reared back for another strike before she saw that Golduck had opened her eyes. "Oh, thank the Spirits, you're awake," she said. She was genuinely concerned about Golduck's health and safety, which was a surprise since, before then, Golduck didn't know that she cared.

And then Honchkrow struck her face again. "You idiot," she spat, all trace of care and concern replaced with a dripping disgust, "how stupid could you be? Swimming yourself to death, bleeding so much you're practically inside-out. You should've taken a break; we're not going to care that you put us behind a few minutes, but now, we might be down a whole 'mon. Two whole 'mon, counting Lucario." Lucario didn't object; he felt like Golduck is feeling himself only a few hours ago. "Since when does protecting our Master mean doing something stupid to ourselves? We have to do this smart, but _no_, we're all so desperate to get out _right now_ that we don't _need_ to strategize."

Honchkrow walked away to wallow in her own disappointment. Flareon immediately tended to the fallen heroine, and was quickly joined by Luxray and Lucario. "Golduck, are you okay? How are you feeling?" There was no clear response: Golduck quacked a few incomprehensible words, then closed her eyes and began to nod off. "Golduck!" Flareon insisted, batting her face with her paw gently a few times, trying to get her attention.

"I said 'yes'," she quacked again, louder. It wasn't entirely untrue: after some minor focus she figured that she was going to live, but she most certainly did not feel okay. She wondered about Torterra, and how he was going to get down the waterfall by himself (there was no _way_ she had the strength to make a round trip now), but the thought evaporated as quickly as it materialized.

"You can't be–" Honchkrow began, a roar of water from the falls dimming out her voice, "–serious." She was undoubtedly furious behind the mediocre calm used in her voice. "Everyone, look! At the top of the waterfall!"

Their eyes turned straight up, eyeing the entrance into the rapids some several stories high. What appeared to be a boulder was slowly making its way down from the top of the rapids; it seemed to be moving under its own weight, and was relatively undeterred from the force of water pushing it. It looked to be a rather perturbing obstacle for Torterra to get past, but otherwise it was an unremarkable sight. "What about it?" asked Lucario.

"What do you mean, 'what about it'?!" she screamed, causing Flareon and Luxray to jump in surprise. Then she remembered that her eyesight was a head-and-shoulders above what theirs was capable of, so they must not have been able to tell clearly from that distance. She calmed down slightly. "That's Torterra! He's walking down the waterfall by himself!"

They all turned looked back, squinting their eyes to make out the finer details on the 'boulder' that was slowly tumbling its way down the falls. It appeared to be moving by itself; it was the greenest boulder any of them had ever seen; the telltale 'tree' stood tall and strong next to the miniature mountain with the unusual discolouration, making it snowy white at its peak; there was no doubt about it. Torterra took it upon himself to walk down the waterfall without any help.

"What's the big deal?" asked Lucario again. "This is part of the plan, right? The plan was to have him walk down the falls himself, since Golduck couldn't and, uh, can't, by herself."

"The idea was that he was going to wait until she got back up so that she could assist in any way she could," she replied, rage seething from her words. "Physically, telepathically, I don't know, but Torterra was definitely _not_ supposed to walk down by himself!"

"Well, _gee whiz_, Honchkrow, thanks for letting us in on _that_ part of the plan at the beginning!" Luxray yelled in Lucario's defence. He never sat well whenever anyone yelled at him, including his Master. "We can't read minds! How were we supposed to know that she was supposed to help with this since the start?"

"I'd soon assume that it was common sense, but I guess it's less common than I thought."

"If you're so much more sensible than the rest of us, than use some of it to realize that Golduck can't do anything about it now, so there's no point in getting so irritated about it. Pull your feathers out of your ass and just hope he makes it down fine instead of taking it out on all of us."

She remained silent. She knew he was right about that, but she'd sooner choke than admit it.

"As a matter of fact, Honchkrow, you yourself know–"

He was interrupted by a worried gasp from Flareon, when she saw Torterra's head suddenly dip below the water when he lost his footing. But he quickly regained his composure, bringing his head back above the water level and continuing his slow trek down the falls. He had entered the violent part of the rapids only a few steps ago, but so far his trek was unhindered by the furious pounding of the water. Things seemed to be under control for him at the moment.

"I don't know if I can watch this," she breathed. Seeing her leader submerged under the water the way he was – it devouring him, from the broadest part of his shell to the very bottoms of his flat feet, his face occasionally being pulled into the unforgiving monster that was the water and remaining there for far too long than she was comfortable with – was enough for her to get so nauseous that she was getting too dizzy to stand still.

"He'll be fine. He's a turtle; he knows how to swim." Lucario was blunt and not very reassuring.

Torterra's walk was slow and deliberate, but he was fine physically. The water damming up behind him was washing angrily over his shell and slipped down either side of his neck, forming a sort of liquid blanket around himself. Footing was very slippery and made frequent dips and crescendos, but it was nothing the part Ground-type had never encountered before; his mastery over the earth made it easy to pound his foot into stable footing, provided there was ground to pound into. Sometimes there was not, and he crashed into the water again, drenching his face and robbing him of his air for a moment before he lifted himself back up.

Although the water was not his ally, for the same reason: Water-types and Ground-types disagreed on a lot of things, although his part Grass-type made the journey rather refreshing for him. He hadn't had a bath since he was a Grotle, because his new size made it too difficult to clean effectively (in his own Master's words, it was 'like washing a boat').

He was more than halfway through the roughest part of the rapids. It was smooth sailing so far – nothing too terribly difficult or painful. Torterra was surprised that Golduck had so little trouble handling these things. He was getting by because his sheer weight outclassed the force of the water, but Golduck was quite a bit lighter than their Master. Sure, she was a Water-type, and she was specifically trained to handle waterfalls among other things, but was it really so simple for a Water-type as light as her to handle a monster like this so simply? And carrying other Pokémon, that were unused to being carried, no less? Perhaps he'd been giving her far too little credit.

The force of the water began to pick up slightly as he began to clear another, small bend in the falls. It was still nothing that he couldn't handle – the very earth shifted under the force of his Earthquake attacks, so a little water pressure was nothing–

Until he shoved his foot straight down into the water a little too precariously. There was no dirt or stone for his foot to stand on: the incline sharply increased, and Torterra fell face-first into the water, all four of his legs uprooted from the slip, and he was carried helplessly by the tide. He frantically kicked his legs and shook his body, hoping to get a grip on something, but the force of the rapids began its own personal revenge for being dammed against the turtle, and he was quickly flipped upside-down, his legs above the water, the tree and the mountain growing out of his shell scraping painfully against the hard rock under the water, and his mouth under the surface, cutting off his oxygen.

He was slammed into a few walls and boulders on his now-uninhibited joyride down the falls. His eyes stung every time he tried to open them under the water, so he kept them closed, instead letting himself get mercilessly beaten by the rocks around him. While he _was_ a turtle, and he _could _swim to some degree, he and his kind weren't evolved with water travel in mind, so he had very little control over his direction or his balance. Although, on the flipside, his lungs were very powerful, so he didn't have to worry about running out of breath for the next few minutes or so, even as he exhaled in surprise and pain every time he collided with something solid.

Finally, he got lucky during his roller-coaster ride down the falls: his 'mountain' got caught deep in some sediment on the waterfall's floor, which, painfully, laterally flipped the 700-pound Torterra back upright, although now he was sliding backwards. He collided a few more times with some walls and boulders, injuring his hind legs and rump some more every time he did. His front legs continued to scratch and dig for any sort of footing for him to grasp onto, but with the water's new force and with how his feet were entirely flat with no claws to grasp with, the effort was wasted.

A few more collisions later, the incline finally began to lift up, and with a final splash, Torterra found himself in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. It was too deep for him to stand in, unlike the shallow pool at the top of the waterfall, and he sunk like a Geodude until he was standing squarely on the floor of the pond, with only the very tip of his 'tree' sticking out of the water.

It took a moment, but he finally regained his senses as he realized that he was no longer tumbling and twisting down the waterfall, and was instead standing upright on his legs. He still couldn't open his eyes; he wanted to breathe, but his instincts told him to keep his mouth closed; and movement felt unusually laboured. It didn't take a genius to figure out he was still in the water.

_It's over_, he concluded with a start. _I made it to the bottom of the waterfall, by myself._

Getting out wasn't a chore. He couldn't open his eyes, but he could still feel a gentle beating on his head, telling him that he was just under the point where the water from the falls met the water in the pool. When on dry land, telling a Pokémon as large as Torterra to jump would be like trying to squeeze water from a rock; but in the water, the action was decidedly easier. With a simple hop and a twist clockwise, Torterra faced the shore, and with a few more hops towards land, his feet caught on the eroded dirt of the shoreline, and he simply walked towards land, and towards his companions.

He was blindsided almost immediately by Luxray, who practically tackled his leader in affection when he emerged unscathed from the water. "You're alive, you're alive!" he yelled over and over again, legitimately surprised that Torterra had gotten to the bottom of the falls just by walking down them.

"Is it really such a surprise?" he asked, turning to the lion that was nudging against his soaked shell. "I was never really in any sort of danger in the first place."

"But! But!" Flareon shouted enthusiastically. She wanted to jump onto his shell and give him the biggest hug her little body could muster – but he was _wet_. She instead took to dancing indecisively to his right, clear that she wanted to embrace him but afraid that he was _contagious_ if she did. "You got into the water! And you walked down the waterfall! And you slipped, and you went under, and you were upside down, and then you were backwards, and, and, you were in the _water!_ Are you hurt? Were you scared?"

He laughed at her panicked antics. He always loved her personality – always so care-free and upbeat but at the same time very parental and protective. It never failed lift his spirits. "I'll live, I'm just a little wet," he replied. The 'tree' and the 'mountain' on his back had taken a beating, but they'd feel better in a day – they felt like he had just gotten back from fighting a Flying-type, comparatively. "And scared? Are you kidding? I wanna go again!" Of course he most definitely did _not_, but Flareon's reaction to the statement was priceless.

Honchkrow was still miffed at how he simply just started walking down the falls without any assistance, but Luxray's logic had begun to seep in a while ago, so she wasn't going to give Torterra an earful (even though he deserved it). She waddled over to their leader – although he deserved little praise for his actions, his guts for doing it so immediately, and without help, deserved congratulations regardless. Just…she was bad at giving praise, and she felt awkward receiving it. So she stood in front of Torterra, stared him in the eye, gave a wry smile, and tipped her 'fedora', hoping that'd pass for congratulation instead.

Lucario wasn't about to get left out of the celebration, although he wasn't nearly as hyperactive as the two quadrupeds in their elation. He lifted his right arm and wrapped it tight around the turtle's neck, giving him a tight, meaningful hug. "Good work, Boss," he said simply, nudging Torterra a little as he emphasized the last word. He worked hard for that title, and if that display of courage didn't earn him it twice over, nothing really did. "Master would be proud…well, proud_er_."

"Oh, speaking of which, how is he?" asked Torterra, all his celebration and weariness gone at the mere mention of their Trainer. "He made it down the falls okay, right? He's unhurt?"

"Don't worry," Lucario replied, pointing to their right with his free arm, directing Torterra's attention to the comatose human lying on his back just outside his peripheral vision. "He's a little wet around the edges, but he made the trip down safe and sound. Not so much as a scratch on him."

"What a relief," he sighed. "Where's Golduck? I want to thank her for all her hard work tonight. She must be exhausted."

The crowd around him suddenly fell silent: Flareon stopped her bouncing; Luxray stopped his nudging; and Lucario's arm lessened its grip around Torterra's neck. No one said a word.

"Guys?" he asked again, suddenly very worried. "Where is Golduck?"

Again, a beat of silence. Honchkrow had enough of that: if they weren't going to tell him, and he was going to find out himself one way or another, she may as well deliver the news. "She's…she's alive, Torterra, but she's–"

"She's just fine, Torterra, thank you for asking," another raspy voice interrupted. Everyone's surprised eyes turned farther right, to where Golduck had previously passed out. She was standing, but her legs were buckling terribly under the strain. Her blood was letting again, although she regained enough composure to stem its flow enough for it to clot, but not enough to kill her. While not as physically wrecked as Lucario or their Master, her eyes were half-closed and she looked even more exhausted than the fighting dog did. Her arms barely had the ability to move, period, and so hung limp at her sides. She was hunched over, her back in too poor a shape to sustain itself vertically, and to further ease the tension on her shoulders. "I saw the whole thing. You're no Water-type, that's for certain," she quacked, a smile spreading across her bill. "But you did Torterra's everywhere proud with what you did. I know I am. Hell, you'd make a Lapras proud with that display."

Torterra ignored all the praise she was giving him and was focusing intently on how horrible she looked. And she looked just fine a few minutes ago, at the top of the falls! "My goodness, Golduck, what happened to you?! How did you wind up like this?!"

She gave a quick glance at both Flareon and Honchkrow. Luxray had his suspicions; and while Lucario wasn't explicitly told how it happened, he had a fairly good idea how she got those wounds.

"You may as well tell him, Golduck," Honchkrow said flatly. "I think he found out."

"Heh," she chuckled once. "I guess he did." Flareon began to slink away, her head and her tail dragging across the ground, as she worriedly laid next to her Master, feeling like a criminal awaiting judgment for an unspeakable crime she committed.

"…I thought I was fine, and that I could handle it, until I took Lucario down. Then it all just sort of…caught up to me, I guess. When we got to the bottom of the falls, I barely had the strength to kick my legs. Lucario did the swimming for us from there. And, well, here we are. I've been trying to rest ever since."

Torterra remained stoic throughout her tale. He had no emotion when he was told that Flareon has punctured Golduck's skin, and he even remained unflinching when Golduck told that she had lied right to his face. Luxray wasn't nearly as collected as his leader, but he remained silent; judgment was not his to hand out, not here.

After a painful few moments of silence, Torterra sighed, looking in Flareon's direction. She was curled into a ball so small she must've compressed herself to half her size, hearing her atrocities from Golduck's side. "I'm not mad, Flareon," he said softly, taking a few tip-toed steps toward her. "You were scared and you panicked; I'd be mad if you _didn't_ have some sort of reaction.

"Who I'm disappointed in is you, Golduck." His expression changed visibly. It displayed no indignation, but sadness: in a time where they needed to trust each other the very most, and to keep no secrets from one another, she went behind his back and did exactly that. "The plan was to keep each other as healthy as possible. We need to keep ourselves strong; we're not even half the way back through the cave, and we're already down two fighters. Why did you think that not telling me you were hurt was the better idea?"

Golduck was surprised that suddenly she was the one under fire – and then quickly relented, because that would mean that she would have preferred that Flareon be the fall-guy in this scenario. Still, kick a girl while she's down, why don't you? "I was worried that you'd rather find another way down the falls if you knew I was hurt. And since we need to get out of here quickly, we couldn't afford to try and find another way down, when there clearly isn't one."

"I agree!" Torterra replied, surprised at Golduck's reasoning. "There isn't another way down. Sure, I'd have made you take a break, but there literally was no other option." He realized mid-sentence that there was no way out of this conversation without making him seem like an unfair leader, but, those were the breaks. "I even asked Lucario if he could dig us a way out way back when we first began walking. Remember? This is a desperate time, and we all have to pull our collective weights if we want to get out."

Honchkrow laughed, inciting the attention of the group. "This, coming from the guy who didn't want Flareon to break open a blockade of rocks, because he was worried she'd overexert herself?"

"Okay, yes, I'm a hypocrite. Is that what you wanted to hear, Honchkrow? I'm letting the pressure get to me, okay?"

"That's not what I wanted to hear at all, Torterra. You're our Master's 'starter' Pokémon. You're the strongest out of all of us and the most experienced. You're a brilliant tactician in battle, although you clearly tend to try to compensate too much for any sort of shortcoming. As much as I want to say that I'd be better fit for leadership, it's not true. How can we expect you to lead us when you doubt yourself? Take a breath: you're working with what you're given, and you're right to hold Golduck accountable for this setback."

"I'm not holding anyone accountable for anything," he said sternly. "You were only doing what you thought was best, Golduck. And I believe that you could've gone the distance, too, if you weren't forced with the stress of carrying our Master down the falls. You had a lot on your mind, and for someone like yourself, I'm sure that's a big problem." He smiled and winked at Golduck with his joke; although she smiled politely, it was clear she wasn't in a very 'funny' mood.

"Golduck," he began again, "in the tree on my back, at the very base of it facing my skull, you'll find a Sitrus berry. Master always gives me these to hang onto during battle with the instruction to eat it whenever I feel ready to faint. You look like you're about ready to die, so, it's yours. It helps a lot, trust me."

She accepted the berry and, although the taste didn't quite agree with her, she ate it quickly. Results were shockingly immediate: although the blood from her shoulders still flowed, the pain dissipated from all parts of her body enough so that she could focus on stemming the flow with her psychics. The long red rivers dried and caked along the backs of her arms, and they stopped dripping onto the dirt below her. She had the strength to stand under her own weight without her knees buckling in the slightest. She was still in quite a bit of pain, naturally, but, thanks to that one little berry, she felt ready to fight some more Graveler.

"Works, doesn't it?" he asked, a knowing smile on his face.

"Like a charm!" she replied. She had had 'Potions' and 'Revives' used on her before, and while they stung initially, the effect they did on her was something like eating this one berry. How come her Chesto and Cornn berries never did this to her?

"Guys, I think this is as good a time as ever to take a rest. Golduck, I know how you're feeling right now, now that you've eaten that berry, but, 'no weak links', remember? We sleep for a few hours, at the longest." He turned to the lion still standing at his side. "Luxray, I know I said Golduck would be next to carry Master, but surely you'd agree that she's in no condition to–"

"Say no more," he interrupted, taking a few steps toward their Master, unstirred in his rest, and laid himself between Flareon and Joshua. "I'll gladly carry him next. Just tell me when," he yawned, laying his head down onto his front paws, "and I'll do my part to help him through."

Golduck had waded back into the water, lying on the beach with her body submerged and her head resting on the dirt of the coast, face-down. A ten-minute nap sounded like a swell idea to her.

Honchkrow wasn't tired at all – again, a lovely inherent trait of the Dark-types, needing less sleep than the average Pokémon. Though, she rested on her knees; keeping her strength up was a priority, if this recent debate had reminded her of anything.

Lucario had taken a seat on a nearby rock since Golduck's story had begun, and did not move the entire time. His skin was still torn and he was still broken on the inside, and needed rest more than anyone else on the team. When it was clear that his attention would no longer be needed for the moment, he guiltlessly nodded off.

"Well, hey, we can't _all_ go to sleep, you guys," Torterra called, wresting everyone (except Lucario) awake. "We need someone to act as a lookout, just in case any more wild Pokémon get aggressive. We'd be easy pickings if we all just fall asleep right now."

Flareon immediately hopped to her feet. "I'll do it, Boss," she replied, jumping right in front of Torterra's path and staring him in the eyes. "I'll be the best lookout you can imagine. If anyone we don't know gets uppity, you can bet your ears that I'll tell you." Torterra knew that that was a safe bet. Although, with her type disadvantage in the lakes, he was worried that some Floatzel, or a Sharpedo or a Gyarados or something, would jump out of the water, and she wouldn't stand a chance. He was going to reconsider, when he looked deep into her onyx eyes; she still felt that she was responsible for Golduck's position, and since she was too small to carry Master, he could tell that she was on the verge of breaking down emotionally, and she needed something helpful to do. Besides, even if he chose someone else, she would probably stay awake and help out anyway.

"I'll stay up and watch with her," Honchkrow offered, unmoving. "I'm not really that tired."

"Sure," he said after some inward deliberation. It was unlikely that they'd be attacked anyway, especially since they were inactive. "After about three hours, wake us all up. I'm sure you'll make me damn proud, Flareon. Do your best."

"Sir, yes sir!" she yelled joyously, and, in a few titanic bounds, perched herself on top of the tallest rock she could find, sitting and staring intently into space, keeping a watchful eye over the area. Torterra couldn't help but laugh at the enthusiasm, before slowly retracting himself into his shell for his short nap.


	4. Chapter 4

Flareon had no way to tell the time, especially not with the luminescent rocks robbing her of any sense of day and night. As a result, the team had slept in longer than Torterra would've have liked (judging simply from how rested he felt), and realized that, from the few Golbats active in the basement, that it was night-time: continuing into the 'main floor' of the cave would be suicide, with all the bats active. They had to stay in the basement for the remainder of the night, where the Golbat were easily handled since there weren't nearly so many of them. Torterra was infuriated at himself for the delay, but, there wasn't anything he could do about it. Defeated, he resigned his team to resting for the night next to the pools. While searching for some long-term shelter, Luxray noticed an unoccupied hollow in the nearby wall that provided cover from any lingering predators. Torterra slept near the mouth of the hollow, knowing that the bats wouldn't be interested in trying to eat through his hard shell, while the land-locked Pokémon would be deterred against fighting someone as large as he was.

The way out of the basement was only a stone's throw from their resting place. The group was more than happy to turn their backs on the lakes and finally continue with their journey to get out of the cave when morning finally came. They each waded into the pools of water provided by the cave (Flareon hated even _looking _at the water, but her thirst persuaded her to at least walk up to its fringes) and drank their fills – while paltry, this was their breakfast. Luxray was burdened with their Master's weight, taking the torch from Torterra; it took some effort from the two weak bipedal Pokémon to get him onto the lion's back, but once they did, Luxray was both large enough and strong enough to not have to worry about keeping his balance. Getting over large obstacles required some help, but otherwise it was fairly smooth sailing for him.

The path was surprisingly clean, considering the recent cave-in. It appeared as though someone was cleaning the paths of the fallen rocks, when, after another half hour of walking, they discovered that someone actually was: while they were not working in unison, many Graveler, Medicham and Machoke were working to clean their own territories of any fallen debris, which happened to intersect across the beaten path many Trainers had taken before Joshua. While all of them were extremely defensive about their territories, they were also non-violent at a distance; most of them simply didn't have the energy to pick fights, while others just preferred to get their lives reorganized with as little interference as possible. Regardless, more than once the team had carelessly wandered into enemy terrain, which, while it didn't result in a physical battle, they were all screeched at and chewed out in their Pokémon tongues. Verbal arguments were more common than battles at the moment.

They were back in the 'main' room of the cave: the plateau where Joshua had fallen into a coma was in visible sight above them, but the exit to the cave, which would be below their current point, was invisible to their eyes. A number of crests and artificial mountains blocked their view of the entire lower floor. The crests were too steep and too craggy to travel safely on foot; they were too high and the gap between their summits and the ceiling was too thin to fly over; and, presumably, the bright rocks that seemed to pool inside the crests (giving them a neat inside-out glow that the team couldn't help but stare at for a moment) were too tough to dig through. All of this was to make a single point: that, to prove the Trainer is ready for the Pokémon League, they will take the route the League has mapped for them, absolutely.

The path they were on was fairly straightforward, with few forks or bumps in the road at all, save any debris that was not cleaned away by the locals. Man-made staircases that survived the cave-in provided an easy route for the group to follow. The biggest obstacle of the room was its sheer size: it was mostly flat and wide, but its mountainous innards just seemed to crawl into infinity. After hours and hours of walking, another archway was in sight, but, unexpectedly, it led upwards, into the attics of the cave, instead of down, towards the exit.

The group had a difficult time debating whether or not they were going to the right way, considering the natural incline led straight up. The consensus was that they were in fact going the wrong way, and they opted to turn around and try another path that a junction had provided them. They lost more hours worth of traveling thanks to the setback – and lost even _more_ when their new path abruptly ended square in front of a wall that was too unstable to climb. Even if it wasn't, it provided no footing to do so. The tension was flavoured in the air when they realized they had lost an entire day's of traveling for no reason, their Master's body changing hands all the while.

By the time they finally made it back to the archway, the Golbat were beginning to pick up in activity, and the native Fighting- and Rock-types were seeking shelter for the evening. Their stomachs all rumbled fiercely, demanding sustenance, but with nothing to eat, their collective strength began to dwindle. As irritated as Torterra was over their lost time, stopping for a rest was an undisputable command, considering the condition for two of six of their team.

"The question is, where to stop, though," he sighed, looking around for a safe haven from the bats that were unoccupied from the locals. "I don't see any safe spots down here, so we should climb this hill and look for one up there."

"Actually, Torterra, couldn't we just rest _in_ the archway? It looks fairly empty to me," Lucario offered. He leaned over slightly to get a better look of the entire shaft – a gentle slope, reaching for maybe twenty or thirty meters. It was dimly lit on either side and it was a bit narrow, but they could all fit one-by-one, easy. Otherwise, it was totally devoid of life. "We could take a few hours rest in there, with two of us awake on either end as guards."

"Hmm." Lucario had made an excellent point, although it was the 'two men' awake part that he wasn't too fond of. He had hoped that only one at a time would be required. "I suppose it's as safe as any other spot we're going to come across. Although I'm worried that some stray Graveler or Onix, or maybe some Golem or Steelix, is going to come barrelling through and mow us all down at once, but that's not too likely to happen, even out in the open. Sure, we'll camp here tonight. I'll stand watch for the first two hours; I need someone else to volunteer."

"I'll do it!" Flareon immediately said.

"You're not going first, Flareon. You stood watch the first time; you need to rest. You'll be rotated in eventually, don't worry."

"In that case," Luxray replied flatly, "I'll help watch first."

"Alright, sounds good. Honchkrow, follow directly behind me, and Luxray, you go in last. Everyone stay close together, and try to stay as compact as possible. Halfway up the ramp, we'll stop; Golduck and Lucario, you lay Master down on the ground, and the four of you huddle around either side of him."

The direction went exactly. Torterra stood protectively over his group, facing uphill, while Luxray lay calmly on his belly facing downhill. Most Pokémon were asleep, and those that weren't were not too fond of moving through the corridor when faced with a foreign Pokémon staring threateningly in their direction. Golbat were also not very keen on hunting in the corridors; meat wasn't very easy to kill in an area where their wingspan exceeded the size of the shaft on either end, and there frequently wasn't any meat to be found in there at all.

Two blissfully uneventful hours passed with the two steadfast watchmen on duty, and on the second hour, give or take, they woke up Honchkrow and Lucario to take the next two hours. Lucario faced uphill; Torterra didn't hear any eccentric flapping of leathery wings on his end of the tunnel, meaning there wasn't any Golbat on the second floor, and while the possibility of a Fighting-type errantly finding its way down his end was possible, a blast from his Aura Sphere aimed skyward decreased the chance of it erupting too close to the tunnel for it to cave in, while at the same time scaring off any would-be predators.

Honchkrow faced downhill, towards where the bats were the most active. Her already formidable size, protected by the rocky casings surrounding her, gave her too well an advantage for the bats to attempt attacking (if they ever even saw her), while she could easily have defended against any Rock-type with her Dark Pulse or Night Slash. Though, even with her Flying-type advantage, she'd be hard-pressed to defend against any Fighting-types, since there wasn't nearly enough room to take flight.

Another two hours passed, and the last two Pokémon awake were Flareon and Golduck to watch over the sleeping group. While Golduck was injured, she would have had the easiest time fighting any rival Pokémon out of all of them. Fighting-types wouldn't dare cross a Psychic-type, and Rock-types wouldn't stand a chance against an agitated Water-type; so Golduck's very existence guaranteed a peaceful sleep from any sort of opponent the cave could throw against them. And since no part-Poison-type Golbat infested the attics, her job was basically done for her. Nevertheless, she remained vigilant on her guard, dismissing any overconfidence as soon as she thought of it: after all, overconfidence got her the physical condition she's in now.

Flareon, conversely, was placed downhill for the same reason: while she wasn't so good at fighting Rock-types, her ability to handle Fighting- and, if the situation was called upon, Flying-types, was more than adequate – if the ruckus from a battle didn't wake the lot of them anyway. And while she could cause a cave in with her Strength all by herself, her Flamethrower and Fire Blast attacks would be less likely to cause one, and they were her best attacks.

Like the others, their sense of time was skewed with the lack of daylight. By their approximation of two hours, the final two guards awoke the rest, and the third day of hopefully very few began. Luxray's duty of carrying their Master had finished for the moment, and the duty rotated onto falling on Honchkrow's capable wings. Because of her size, however, hefting the human onto her feathery back and keeping him in a comfortable and secure position was a challenge in itself.

The attics of the cave where densely populated by rival Pokémon. Since the Golbat did not infest the upper levels – 'infest' being a light term, since there wasn't even a single bat to be found – the organic Pokémon, such as Kadabra and Medicham, were free to run amok as their hearts desired without worrying about the flying predators. Food was scarce between all of them, however, and already many of them were having full-out fistfights with each other over any scrap of meat or any leaf of lettuce for their breakfasts.

It only reminded the team of how hungry they were themselves. They hadn't had food since the morning of the cave-in, and it's been two full days since then; the only thing they've had at all was the water from the basement area. They all attempted to walk it off and tough it out for as long as they could, but when Torterra's titan tummy began to voice its displeasure (and it was voiced very clearly), they decided it was a good time to stop and think about what they could do for food.

"There aren't too many options," Luxray lamented, sitting on his hind, looking perplexedly around the cave's walls. "We could try fighting the locals for whatever food they're fighting over."

"We'd have to do that six times, though," Lucario replied. He was experiencing stomach pains from his hunger. "Seven, if we want to feed Master as well. We'd risk inciting a riot with that behaviour."

"We could just eat the natives, in that case," the lion replied, his face as smooth as tree bark; his tone of voice implied that he was serious, although his face told that he wasn't especially wild about the idea, and that he could hardly believe he pitched it.

"That's..." Golduck said, her face twisting in several emotions, trying to drum up the right words to define her feelings. "That's probably the farthest from an acceptable idea we could possibly be."

"I know, but our situation doesn't exactly scream 'acceptable' to me. We might just have to do something unacceptable to live."

"Regardless, Luxray, we're still awfully far from reaching that sort of desperate conclusion." Torterra was not disgusted at all by Luxray's barbarous intent: it was clear that the option had occurred to him as well. Torterra were not strictly herbivores; he'd do what he had to if it meant survival.

"If we're interested in less cool ideas," Honchkrow interrupted, rolling her shoulders to better adjust the sleeping human on her back. The thought of killing others and feeding off their carcasses appealed to her. "We could try shifting through Master's things again, to get to the berries he keeps in that bag. He's bound to have _something_ edible in there, waiting for us to find it."

Golduck shifted on her ankles a bit. "I dunno...I'm a little nervous about wading through Master's bag, after what happened last time."

"He keeps the berries in one of the front pockets, and not the main one at the top. They should be easy to find."

"I see no problem with this plan either, Golduck," their leading turtle confirmed. "Just give a little look through Master's things and see if you can find any berries in there. He spent days running all throughout Sinnoh, harvesting them for our trip through this cave; he's bound to have more than just the few day's worth he gave us."

She sighed. "Okay, if you say so..." She leapt onto Torterra's shell and undid the straps attaching the bag to the tree. It was heavier than she remembered – she figured that her muscles must still be torn from those round trips up and down the waterfalls. Her wounds had healed over nicely, but they still ached and moaned every time she moved her shoulder blades.

Remembering the difficulty she had with the long, metal, toothy rope last time she tried to get it to open physically, this time she immediately decided to will the bag open, forgoing any strain she'd have trying to get it to cooperate. She took Honchkrow's advice and opened the pocket on the front as opposed to rummaging through the main pocket at the top. Immediately the familiar smell of plant-grown fruit wafted into the air, penetrating the nostrils of each of the six Pokémon surrounding it. Four of them began to salivate.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" prompted Flareon, impatiently bounding up and down on the same spot, wanting to get her breakfast as soon as she could. Though Luxray and Lucario weren't as mobile or as vocal as their fiery friend, they were still just as impatient; Lucario began to knead his stomach fur in an attempt to soothe his increasingly violent belly.

There were lots of different berries in the one pocket that Golduck could see, but very few of them looked familiar, and a lot of them were either crushed or bruised from their Master's fall off the cliff face. What berries that hadn't been crushed into a fine goo were still edible, and that was good enough for any of them. When she found a Chesto berry, she quickly gulped it down, savouring almost none of the flavour. Pinap berries were flung to Flareon; Leppa berries were launched to Lucario; Oran berries were tossed to Torterra. Though there weren't so many of their individual favourite berries that she could see: some of them didn't even look native to Sinnoh, as far as she knew.

Although many of them weren't too concerned over semantics like that. "Just dump the whole bag, Golduck!" was a common command from the rest of them; they were too hungry to pick and choose their favourite foods. Golduck eventually relented; she turned the bag upside-down and released the entire pocket's contents on the floor for all of them to eat, spilling all the solid berries and pouring the juices uselessly onto the ground.

Torterra vaguely attempted to establish order among the ravenous group – that they'd all eat a fair share of berries, and they'd all take turns picking a berry and eating it before the next one went. But their stomachs claimed dominion over their ears, and Torterra's attempt at making it a fair breakfast became deaf. Frustrated but hungry, he gave in, and quickly forced his way between his comrades for his own share of the food.

A few of them pulled their stuffed faces back from the unusually large pile of food, in disgust – some of the berries tasted vaguely of Poffins which, when mixed and cooked just right, could be extremely filling and viciously delicious. But these berries were raw – clearly not meant to be eaten in this shape or form. Their taste left something to be desired, but they also had seeds all throughout their insides; their skins were tough and chewy; and the cores were soft and dull, totally taking the satisfaction of eating it through away. Flareon and Honchkrow openly displayed their distaste for the raw berries by spitting them back out (Honchkrow taking obvious care of her oblivious Master sleeping on her back); the others decided that, while a disfavour to eat in general, they were still food, and they'd serve their purposes better inside than out.

The pile was around half eaten when a loud crash erupted just behind the group: specifically, behind Luxray. They all quickly whirled around to see the cause of the disruption. A Graveler was drawn to the scent of the berries and, with one titanic swing of both its right arms, Luxray took a deafening crack to his side and was spun away from the food. The act of aggression was immediately met with an Aura Sphere from Lucario – being part Fighting-type, his reflexes towards aggression were nicely toned, allowing him to react towards surprise attacks more swiftly than others. The Graveler took a few steps back in anguish, though was not yet defeated; another quick Aura Sphere made sure it stayed down.

However, other wild Pokémon, from all over the floor, were brought in by the smell of the berries, and when other wild Graveler saw the first one fall unconscious thanks to the blue bipedal dog, they flew into a frenzy and began attacking the others, all for the sake of getting their food.

Golduck saw the horde coming with, thankfully, just enough seconds to spare to let loose a Waterfall attack: focusing the clean water she can naturally generate from her body into her palms with a little telekinesis, she suckered the first Graveler that came close enough with a powerful blast. The rival reeled back and roared in agony as if it had been set aflame; the others of the same type took it was a subtle hint, and ceased their full-on rampage, though they did not retreat.

Flareon dashed towards her fallen Luxray, wrought with worry about his well-being. The lion was already back onto his paws, though each of his joints vibrated as if they were struggling to keep up. He had difficulty lifting his head, and his entire right side buckled and flinched unnaturally with the strain. There were no broken bones, fortunately, but it would take some time for the shock of the blow to wear off and for the bruises to heal. Flareon didn't bother asking if he was alright: the answer was half-standing in front of her.

Honchkrow took to the sky as soon as she realized that the area she was in became a danger zone. Her first instinct came naturally, as a Dark-type: fight, and win, as brutally as she wanted. With the very first flap of her wings, though, the fact that she was still shouldering the weight of a human made itself known. Precision flying would be absolutely necessary to keep her Master safely on her back; since he was unconscious, he couldn't grip her deep-rooted feathers for security, and he had no core-balance to control. He could still be lifted to safety (and with the Golbat gone, it was certainly an appealing decision), but her balance would be as fickle as a coin standing on its edge. Fighting was _definitely_ out of the question.

Although still physically broken, Lucario felt quite a bit healthier after eating some breakfast. He might've caught some Oran and Sitrus berries in his maw, which were now giving him herbal strength unlike he had ever felt before, but more importantly, his stomach no longer ached. It whined and pleaded that it wanted more in it, but the pain from his earlier starvation had been quelled. His fists burned with a renewed Aura. A majority of the Pokémon he was now facing were Psychic-types, which he'd have to steer clear from, but he was more than ready to break some bricks.

The sight of Luxray – his second oldest friend – beaten in a single swift surprise attack in such a way left a burning desire for blood in Torterra's eyes. He feared no Rock- or Fighting- or Psychic type. He was physically the strongest out of the entire group. His Master entrusted to him absurdly powerful attacks that could cover huge ranges (including Earthquake, which quickly grew on Torterra as an attack) for him to use as he liked. He learned an interesting one weeks ago: Leaf Storm, which drew on the Grass-type side of him for its power. He quickly became addicted to its unusual power, and he was really itching to use it again lately.

Though he never got the chance. Golduck drew from herself an intense spray of water, seemingly coming from her entire body and not just her mouth or her pads. Her Surf attack was underwhelming in her current, weakened state – the others had seen the bodily blast of water reach such destructive levels that, when it was focused, entire trees toppled and panes of glass shattered over fifty yards away, and the water would be so constant that the ground they stood on became drenched to the average human's ankles (how any specific Water-type could hold so much liquid in their bodies was a scientific phenomenon that was still being researched) – but the Graveler got the message. The entire brigade of walking boulders were at least uncomfortably drenched, and while not all of them yelped in pain over the sudden deluge, they all knew that they couldn't fight a Water-type as capable as Golduck. And they all knew the destruction a Grass-type as large as Torterra could do.

The Psychic-types were scared off too, though not because of Golduck. They were instead scared off by the huge flapping wings of the retreating Honchkrow. All of the Kadabra had retreated from the lower 'floors' of the cave because of the Golbat – since there was no place else in Victory Road that Kadabra gathered, there were exceedingly few of them in the cave at all, and though they could trounce the Poison-types one-on-one easily, the Golbat outnumbered the Kadabra seemingly hundreds-to-one. Coupled with seeing the part-Dark-type's massive form flying only a few metres from them, suddenly they weren't hungry enough to start a fight anymore. They each backed off slowly.

The aggression of the wild Pokémon vanished as quickly as it appeared when faced with adversaries like those. They had the numbers, they knew, but these Pokémon were trained specifically for battle, whereas everyone in the wild were only trained in surviving the longest – the ones with the human likely knew how to deal with crowds like the one they just faced down, as displayed by the Golduck's ability to make the durable Graveler beg for mercy after a single strike.

Torterra was relieved on the outside: he wouldn't have to worry about fighting and getting his Master in any danger, and his felled electric friend could be tended to immediately. On the inside, though, a nagging feeling of disappointment was difficult to ignore: the journey had been stressful for him, and he wanted to blow off some steam by knocking a few skulls. He felt guilty whenever he thought he would rather fight than not fight.

"Luxray, are you alright?" he asked, calling his attention to something more selfless and urgent.

He grunted a few times as he pulled himself to his feet. He was still wobbly all over, but he appeared to be regaining his grip on reality. "Ah," he sputtered, feeling Flareon push him up from underneath him, lending herself as a brace. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I was just...I'll be okay." He wasn't bleeding and his bones remained firmly in place, although he had felt better.

Torterra nodded, turning to his aquatic sidekick. "Good job scaring away the Graveler, Golduck. It would've been a mess here if you didn't show off some muscle."

"Thanks," she replied, though her voice was raspy, as if she were thirsty. "I just hope it doesn't happen again for a little while."

"You sound thirsty."

"A little, yeah. Normally I could've used an attack like that much stronger, and more frequent, but...we've been away from water for a while, and I haven't been in my Poké Ball since this whole mess started, so...I guess I'm just a little tired. Give me a few minutes, and I should be back to full strength again."

Lucario wasn't paying any attention to either of Torterra's conversations, and was more focused on helping Honchkrow land with their Master safe and sound. Her flaps were smooth and delicate: not too violent for fear that she would accidentally shrug off her Master, and not too gentle in case she began to glide. Landing was arduous, and the human on her back began to slide to her left side.

"Left, my left, Lucario!" she hollered, directing him into position just in case he slipped off her entirely. The jackal ran to her left side, watching Joshua slowly lean over her left side. She began to grow hesitant in her wing strokes, as if stopping herself from flapping would keep the human from falling. Finally, after once delaying her down stroke for too long, her entire left side dipped and she began to plummet. She corrected herself immediately, but the slant was too steep to prevent him from falling anymore, and in one movement, Joshua fell off Honchkrow.

There was a collective gasp from everyone who witnessed it (Luxray and Flareon couldn't, since they couldn't see past Honckrow's huge body), including from Honchkrow, though the tension passed when Lucario caught him safely in his open arms. The fall wasn't very long – only about four feet or so; certainly not a fatal distance – but nobody wanted to see their Master any more beaten up than he already was.

"Good catch," Honchkrow breathed, making a landing now that she didn't have to worry about her dead weight. Lucario replied with an appropriate 'thank you' and laid the human down gently.

Torterra cleared his throat loudly, to get everyone's attention. "Guys, we still have some berries left here to eat. We should eat them before the Graveler and Kadabra get any more bright ideas." The idea went unchallenged, and the six of them ate the remainder of their breakfast quickly. Not a single berry remained.

The Master's bag was hung back onto the tree on Torterra's back; the Master himself was hoisted onto Honchkrow once more, and the journey began again. Many of the wild Pokémon were much more passive towards the group this time: nearly all of them had witnessed Golduck's type-advantage display and Honchkrow's hauntingly large wingspan (save the young Geodude and Abra, though the children's numbers were sparingly thin), and with their food all gone, all incentive towards starting a fight had left with it. Many of them were still territorial and shouted threats and obscenities towards the six whenever they got a little too close.

Flareon was leading the way for the group again. Between Luxray's ambush, Golduck's and Lucario's improving physical condition, Honchkrow carrying Joshua and Torterra's disgraceful speed, Flareon was really the only one still fit for scout work. And she was fairly decent at it as well: while attacks were extremely infrequent, she was the fastest in the entire group and could deal with each threat the most efficiently. With the squishy Machoke and Medicham, her Fire-based attacks worked wonders, and against the harder Onyx and Graveler she had enough physical strength to mow them down in one or two attacks, thanks to the 'hidden' machine that was implanted between her shoulder-blades.

That same physical strength was put to the test numerous times throughout the upper floors of the cave, too. Strewn all around the floor were large boulders – unusually smooth boulders that were too large for most Pokémon to step over or crawl past, but small enough so that most Pokémon could push them out of the way if they had enough strength. They were composed of the same material that the luminescent stones all throughout the cave were made of, making them too dense to destroy with the average Fighting-type attack, and giving them an odd, 'artificial' white colour to them. Since there was no shortage of supply for the material seeing as the cave was practically made of it, the floor was almost entirely one giant puzzle filled to the brim with them. It was obviously the work of the Pokémon League.

"Leave it to me," assured Flareon; her pitch black eyes turned to crescents as she smiled to her team-mates. "Boss...I mean, 'Boss' Boss took me all through this place three days ago, so I know how to get us back through." Because of the microchip in her back, pushing the boulders around was a breeze, even for someone as small as she was. She leaned into the boulder, and with a kick from each of her legs, she pushed the rock with her back. It usually never rolled more than two yards, but she was the only one capable of moving them at all, aside from Lucario, who'd still have trouble rolling it more than six inches without the aid of the machine powering Flareon's petite body, even at full strength.

The areas that most boulders plugged off (seemingly placed where they were specifically to be a roadblock for any aspiring Trainer to pass through) were actually decently populated, as with the rest of the floor. Golduck guessed that, since the boulders couldn't be destroyed by any conventional Pokémon attack, and since they were too large to jump over, any areas that were behind them would be sparsely populated, if at all, since no one could get past them. She was wrong, though; the rest of the room was just as wild as any other area in the room.

"Actually," Flareon remarked, wincing a bit as she put more muscle into moving another boulder, "all these rocks are more or less exactly where we first found them the first time we came through here. It's as if someone moved them all back when we weren't looking."

It only took a moment of pondering for Lucario to realize why. "The humans," he blurted unexpectedly, getting everyone's attention. "The humans that we fought in the cave were...'ehm-ploy-eed'," he remembered, trying to phonetically pronounce the word his Master had used earlier (there wasn't really a word for 'to hire someone to do something for you' in their language), though in his Pokémon tongue, it came out sounding garbled and impossible to decipher, "by the Pokémon League, I remember Master saying. They must've moved the boulders back when we passed through, so that the next Trainer would have to move them himself."

It was a minor inconvenience, the fiery little dog assured, and resumed her duties pushing boulders as large as Torterra around the room. The room had a few natural rocky outcroppings remaining here and there all throughout, but it was mostly just boulder after boulder. Time began to pass quickly, and very little progress had actually been made; to Flareon, all the boulders began to mesh and she was having difficulty remembering which one she had already pushed. She would also sometimes push a boulder up against a wall, where it became impossible to push it in more than two dimensions, and more than once she had pushed two boulders together, where the added weight resisting her pushes far exceeded anything she was capable of moving.

Hours began to pass, and nobody had any idea if they were going in the right direction, or if they were just going in circles some more. There were no landmarks since the 'floor' was mostly flat, and the boulders were too dense to chip any markings in to tell if they'd already been pushed, and in what direction. Markings on the outer walls and the occasional outcropping did assist somewhat, but because the natural outcroppings were so sparse and because they rarely ventured to the very walls of the room, they were generally useless. Markings on the ground helped tremendously at first, but with the crude manner that Flareon 'rolled' the boulders, all of the markings on the dirt were destroyed every time a boulder rolled over them.

The labyrinth of stone proved too soon to be a major inconvenience. Flareon had the technological prowess of the humans working with her, but even with the machine working her muscles to their greatest potentials, her strength was waning quickly. Her body thrusts began to only push the boulders half the distance they did when she began, and she had to stretch every time she did make a successful push. Her perky ears had began to droop; her tail dragged unceremoniously across the ground; and her fur was dirty and matted, and began to tear slightly along her right side, which she leaned into when she pushed. Her temper was uncharacteristically thin as well: numerous times her team-mates had suggested she take a short break to catch her breath, or maybe Honchkrow could fly a short distance to get a better view of the maze – not that it would've helped much, since the maze sprawled in every which direction, and with no clear boundaries, it would've been too difficult for her, having never done something like that before. She furiously refused each offer, and openly disobeyed Torterra and Luxray whenever they _ordered_ her to stop.

None of them were dumb: having lived most of their lives (in Lucario's case, his _entire_ life) with each other, it didn't take them long to realize why she was acting so abrasively. Three of the six Pokémon in the team had one thing in common: they had lived alone in the wild until Joshua had caught them all. They didn't have families of their own; most Pokémon are exiled from their nests at a fairly young age, depending on the surrounding environment and the aggression of the local wildlife – and they were all entirely happy with that. Flareon was born from a domesticated Eevee and was torn from her real family to live with Joshua since that fateful day. She didn't blame her Master for it, and while she didn't even remember them that clearly, she had forgiven her parents and original owners, figuring that they must've had their reasons (and if they hadn't done what they had to, she wouldn't have met her current Master, and Luxray, and all her friends now). Who knows what would've happened to her if Joshua hadn't come across her at that very moment. She owed her life to her Master, and now he was in a position where he could use her help the most. But she was too small to carry him; she couldn't protect him during the cave-in (she knew that there was nothing she could do about that, but it still made her feel rotten); and she couldn't help him get down from the waterfalls, and in fact made his journey _worse_ by wounding Golduck in the process. This was the only area in the entire cave that she _knew_ she was the only one who could see Joshua to the end, and she felt that if she failed here, she would be a failure as a trained Pokémon.

Hearing each and every one of her pained, exhausted grunts as she forced herself up to move boulder after boulder broke their collective hearts, knowing that it was useless without some kind of help, but none of them could bear to stop her. She was depressed, and this was the only way she could work through it.

Flareon herself began to sob from the aches and pains in her body, but most of her tears were emotional, having spent hours in there, pushing boulders left and right with no end in sight, in a desperate attempt to prove herself worthy to her Master. She put all the force she had into one final push of the boulder, and collapsed in a broken heap. The boulder she pushed didn't roll eight inches, but she didn't care anymore about pushing rocks; she had failed. If they were to die in this cave, it would be her fault.

Flareon cried. She flushed away her aggression and exhaustion with her tears. She laid face down, facing away from the rest of the group. She didn't care if the others heard her or saw her cry; she gave everything her body had to offer to get Joshua to safety, and she failed in a spectacular fashion. She felt that she was allowed her tears.

The others had no idea what to say, or what to do, or anything, for that matter. It was a heart-wrenching scene for them to witness: for their lifelong best friend and romantic interest for one to practically surrender her will to live with that one final push of the boulder. Not even Honchkrow had anything witty or spiteful to say – her heart was ripped just as asunder as the rest of them, and to do that to a Dark-type Pokémon was quite the accomplishment. Luxray particularly felt he should go over there and say something, or pull her to her feet and help her push, or _anything_, as long as he didn't have to see her cry. But what could he do?

The frozen, disgusting air was shattered by a wheezing noise, as if someone or something was having difficulty breathing. The group, minus Flareon, looked around inquisitively, trying to define a source for the sound. The wheezing was soon interrupted by a hacking cough, followed by some kind of gurgling noise, then a bone-chilling split second of silence, and ending with more wheezing.

"I think you're doing it," Lucario said, his eyes locked tightly into Honchkrow's. She was about to give a sarcastic retort, when the wheezing became much more violent, and suddenly Joshua lurched a little on her back, knocking her off balance. Joshua was suddenly, slowly thrashing about on Honchkrow's back, all the while making a series of disgusting throat noises.

"Quick, get him off me!" She didn't need to give the command at all – already Golduck and Lucario were at Honchkrow's sides, gently easing the uncomfortable human from his resting spot on the bird's back and into their arms. All the other times they moved their Master on and off Pokémon were fairly smooth in his dormancy, but now, he was unusually active, making safe transport from the top of the large crow's back to the ground something of a hassle. It took a short while longer than usual, but, they managed to pull him off and rest him on the floor all the same. Flareon had ceased her sobbing to see what the hubbub was all about, and was immediately interested in the happenings when she learned it concerned Joshua.

All six of them stood in a circle around the human. He was calming down slightly, but his heavy wheezing wasn't stopping. His face was red, and he was beginning to sweat. "What's wrong with him?!" asked Torterra in a mild panic. He wasn't prepared for something like this to happen, whatever 'this' was.

"Give me a moment," replied Golduck. She sat beside her eccentric Trainer and placed a delicate pad on his forehead. She closed her eyes, and quickly went into a trance: her breathing slowed dramatically, and not a single fine hair on her blue body moved a millimetre. She remained that way for only ten seconds, but for the others – watching their beloved Master pathetically writhe in obvious pain on the ground, with absolutely no idea what was wrong with him – it felt far longer than that. "He's sick," she finally said, snapping her eyes open and ending her trance. "He's running a high fever and is sick with what humans call 'influenza', or just 'the flu' for short. He's also hungry and extremely dehydrated."

"'Influenza'? Is it terminal?" asked Lucario – and noting that the question didn't spark as much a reaction from Flareon as he had hoped. Although with how down she was already, it would've been difficult to droop her ears any further, and she was so sad that there was no more hope to drain from her face; hopefully, if the answer was positive, that'd put some faith back into her.

"And how do you know what it's called anyway?" Luxray added.

"Some minor mental probing. I took the general symptoms his body was experiencing by reading his mind, and comparing them to a list of diseases that he himself knew the names and symptoms to. Sort of like reading a really, really long card." She turned her gaze from Luxray's to Lucario's. "And to answer your question, no, he's not going to die from it; although the shock of the disease hitting so powerfully and so unexpectedly...and with him in his current condition, it might cause something to happen to his mental health. Probably nothing; possibly _something_."

Honchkrow cawed in aggravation. "There's nothing we can do for his illness; at least, not here, where there aren't any herbs or berries. But we might be able to do something about his hunger and his thirst. Golduck, check Master's bag again. I remember seeing all sorts of different liquids in clear containers in the main compartment of his bag from our supper meal four nights ago." Golduck remembered something of the sort as well, and immediately complied, jumping onto the still tortoise's shell and removing the bag from its branch for the third time that trip.

She remembered what the containers looked like, vaguely: a clear material, transparent as water but still a solid, with an opaque white cap set at its top. They were frequently long, though still compact enough to be able to store a small number in a space as large as his backpack. Many of them bared colourful emblems across their diameters, usually located only an inch or so from their centres. It didn't take much rooting through the bag to find a number of them resting closer to the bottom.

She removed as many as she found from the bag. The capsules matched the image that the Pokémon remembered of them. Many of them were empty, with only a few drops remaining on the bottom; some had condensed into steam, fogging the insides of the bottles. Though two of them were still full: one of the liquids had a dark, thick, bubbly appearance, while the other was clear yellow with no bubbles. Neither of them looked familiar to the team of six, whom only had experience with basic liquids such as water.

"Is it okay for him to drink either of those?" asked Torterra. While he trusted his Master's decisions – why would he carry around a liquid he couldn't drink in such a secure container? – they both still appeared unappetizing to each of them; and liquids used for things other than drinking and other than attacks were not unheard of to him.

Golduck deliberated on her answer, humming to herself as she examined both the drinks. "Probably. I've seen Master drink the contents from bottles like these many times before, and I don't see why he'd store a drink that'd be obviously unhealthy for him in his bag. But I've never seen them look like this before."

Honchkrow remained impatient, as the noise of their Master's moaning and wheezing was constantly overshadowing other conversation. "Who cares? They're drinks and they were found in his bag. Just pull the top off one of them and give it to the poor guy."

None of the Pokémon knew how to work human inventions, so Golduck took Honchkrows suggestion literally and attempted to pull the white spigot off the top of the capsule. It didn't budge in the slightest; not even her mightiest muscle, her mind, could pull the cap off the bottle.

"No, no, you're doing it wrong," interrupted Lucario. He extended his paw towards Golduck, expecting her to entrust the package to him. "I remember him working one of these things as well, and you don't just _pull_ the plug off it, you have to twist it off. Let me try it." She complied and placed the bottle in his hands.

It felt weighty and durable, thanks to the volume of liquid inside it. He had a little difficulty manoeuvring his paws over the small cap in such a way that he had a comfortable grip on it, but once he did, he began to twist the top of the capsule clockwise. He didn't expect it to be too difficult – his Master had twisted off the tops of other capsules with relative ease, and resealed them in vaguely the same way just as simply. So it caught Lucario off-guard when the plug positively _refused_ to yield. Try as he might, the top of the capsule simply would not budge, even under his own mighty strength. The entire bottle twisted with his wrists, and made sickly creaking noises with the more pressure he applied to the small object. The others were about to intervene so they could come up with a better plan to opening the bottle, when, with a shuddering tearing noise, the bottle itself yielded to the jackal's might, ripping roughly in half from the effort, and spewing the liquid everywhere. The black ooze sprayed all over the area, covering Lucario and Golduck in it, as well as lightly dousing the others of the group. A large concentration of it spilled onto the floor in front of them, where the liquid bubbled and sizzled for only a second, before calming entirely and washing into the land, making itself entire useless.

"Smooth move, knucklehead," Luxray said bitterly, rather peeved over how they had lost an entire drink in such a fashion so quickly.

"I'm sorry!" he protested in response, legitimate apology wrought in his eyes. "That was how Master did it, I swear! I have no idea how he managed to make it work for him!"

Torterra sighed irritably. This was getting stressful: his best friend was lying on the floor, still huffing and wheezing and occasionally coughing, and it was unusually difficult to simply give the poor guy the drink he wants.

"Should we try the second container, Torterra?" asked Golduck, the second bottle, with the transparent yellow liquid, already in her hands.

"No point," he sighed again. "Neither of you can figure it out, and any of us would likely be just as successful as Lucario, since we don't have hands. Just put it away." Golduck complied and replaced the intact bottle back into the knapsack, when the back of her padded flippers brushed against something cool and smooth. She picked it up, blind as to what it could be – when it appeared to be another liquid container. Although this one was cool to the touch as opposed to either of the others; the container itself was entirely opaque and solid, so no one could see through it; it was decided smaller than the other, transparent container she had replaced; and all along the entire case was a bright, fancy logo, bearing a vague resemblance to one of the other labels she had just seen.

"I think this is another drink," she finally said after examining the container for a short moment. It was definitely unopened, and whenever she shook it, there was a faint sloshing noise that could be heard coming from the inside of its walls. "But I have no idea how to open it." One side was entirely smooth and concave with protruded edges, while the other was slightly more convex and was adorned with some kind of metal ring that was far too small to comfortably fit on any finger. She tried shaking it; she tried twisting it; she tried willing it open with her mind; but no matter what, this was another dead end for her.

"I could try opening it," Lucario offered, his grabby paw already extending out to take the small metal device. His paw was immediately slapped away.

"Put it back, then, Golduck. It's not going to help us if we don't know how to use it." Those wise words came from Honchkrow. Reluctantly, Golduck replaced it into the bag as well, ignoring any other sensation that might lead her to believe that she found a solution. "I'm out of bright ideas, then," she continued.

Aside from the painful inhaling and exhaling of Joshua's, there was silence among them as they tried to think up a way to help their unwell Trainer. "Could we..." started Flareon – she practically already knew the answer to her question, and her mood wasn't really set to handle a lot of rejection, but she wanted to ask anyway. "Should we go back to the waterfalls? He could be treated there."

"No," Torterra replied softly yet immediately. "We'd lose way too much time, and as of this morning we're out of food, so...we can't really afford any more detours."

"Although, that gives me an idea," Luxray replied, taking a few steps towards Golduck. "I was reminded by Flareon's suggestion, but, Golduck, couldn't you just...I don't know, 'Water Gun' into his mouth or something? It'd help him out of his dilemma."

"That's disgusting and I can't believe you'd suggest that," she retorted, her face twisted into an anagram of disgust and sickness. "I shoot water from my body, Luxray. That's my bodily fluid I'm spraying at my opponent; sure, it's technically clean enough to drink from, but this stuff _comes out of me_. It's appalling to even hear you suggest it." The indignation was clear in her voice, although Luxray didn't know what he had done wrong; he had only asked a simple question.

"Actually," Torterra intervened, his head crooked to the side in thought. "If you–"

"You don't actually _agree_ with Luxray, do you, Torterra?!" shouted Golduck in utter dismay, refusing to believe that their acting leader would endorse something so...unbelievably disgusting! "He's suggesting I just _drool_ into his mouth like some kind of...like some kind of pervert deviant! While he's asleep, no less! It breaks…it breaks all the rules!"

"Under normal circumstances, Golduck, I'd agree with you," he answered, his face flat. "It's a disgusting image and if we were anywhere else, I wouldn't be able to look Luxray in the eye again after a suggestion like that. But," he sighed, stamping his left front leg in exhaustion, "he has a point right now. Look at him, Golduck. Our Master is lying on the ground, badly hurt; he hasn't woken up for a day and a half now, and he's wheezing and crying for something to drink. You can get him that drink...and it'd be a hell of a lot better if you did it than any of us." Everyone, including Golduck, flinched at the idea of giving their _own _particular brands of drink to their Master, an unflattering image they all could have done without – except for the demented Honchkrow, who openly laughed at the visual. "You just said it yourself that the water you produce is clean enough for others to drink from. We're in a pretty desperate spot here, and you know Master's favourite saying of his..."

"'Desperate times call for desperate measures'," recited Lucario. Joshua said it often enough, and the commands he usually made following the saying cemented its meaning in each of their minds, even if they didn't understand the human language as well as Lucario. It was a saying he would frequently utter when the going started to get tough for the lot of them during battle, just before he'd command one of them to do something unusually brash and risky, such as having Torterra use Leaf Storm too frequently in one battle, or sending Flareon against a Water-type. These tactics worked surprisingly often, but it was always a tense moment when he made a call like it, and they all wished moments like them occurred less frequently.

"We can't give him any of his human drinks. We can't safely open any of their containers, and we don't even know if they're supposed to be ingested. That black one that fizzled and dissolved looked more likely to burn him from the inside out than give him strength. We _could_ just ignore it and hope for the best, but..." He didn't bother finishing that sentence: just leaving him there, wheezing through and hacking up phlegm without making any attempt to help him, would be a disgrace to each of them as trained Pokémon; a grave insult not only to their Master, but also to other trained Pokémon across the globe.

Golduck gave it some thought – and she couldn't believe that she was even _considering_ her options, but for both the reasons. On the one pad, she couldn't believe she was seriously thinking about ejecting fluid that she produced organically into her Master's face. It was usually done as an attack: spitting at your opponent (though normally with the force and frequency of a fire-hydrant; she'd naturally just 'pour' the water into his mouth if she agreed to do it in the first place) served only as a legitimate defensive manoeuvre. Not only that, but it tended to aggravate the opponent into further aggression since the defending Pokémon was, in fact, squirting water made organically in their bodies.

On the other pad, though, her Master _was_ essentially crying for something to drink, and considering all that he went through, plus his newfound fever, he could use all the help the others could give him. She, like everyone else in the group, was extremely devoted to Joshua, and a little embarrassment was a small price to pay if it meant making his life just a little easier for now.

She whimpered a little while she juggled the decision with herself. She tried imagining how she would do it while looking right at the human's face: tipping his head back a little, opening his mouth, and...well, that imagery didn't exactly make her less apprehensive about it. After the entire ordeal with the waterfalls the day before, she wasn't too thrilled with having all the pressure remounted onto her still-sore shoulders. After hearing Joshua make some more throat-grating coughs, she tried remembering her adventures with him up until that point. All the way from Oreburgh Gate to Victory Road, with her Master's fondest wishes just beyond the most difficult challenge in Sinnoh. They had stuck together as they conquered all of Sinnoh, along with the others...but thinking about their travels together as a family reminded her of the brutal hell that was Route 217, and how her Master was in a predicament much like the one he's in now.

She had defeated her apprehensive reasoning when her mind's eye filled itself with the memories of the chest-deep snow, the impossible cold, and the territorial local life that made the walk that much more painful. It was a miracle that they had all survived the sort of malicious brutality that nature had to show them.

"Fine," she whispered under her breath, just loud enough for only Torterra to hear. "I'll do it, but..." she raised her head to look everyone around her in the eyes. "You all have to...turn around, okay?"

Honchkrow giggled at Golduck's insecurity. "What?" she asked, to confirm that Golduck was so nervous and shy about what was basically survival that she would ask everyone to avert their eyes, sort of like an infant.

"Please don't make me say it again," she pleaded. "This is embarrassing enough for me to know that I'm about to...do what I'm about to do. I don't need five pairs of eyes looking at me while I do it."

Torterra didn't miss a beat with the 'clarification'. "Of course, Golduck. Everyone, do what she says and turn around." When he was a much younger Grotle, back when he and Psyduck were still new friends, he would have guffawed ceaselessly over her shyness, but now, he understood that this wasn't very easy on her either. Everyone complied – Honchkrow still suppressing her laughter – and turned to face the opposite direction, away from Golduck and their injured human. When Torterra finally managed to turn his huge, round body around, she took another look at her Master, and took a deep breath.

She was inexperienced with this sort of...thing. She was used to launching high-pressure water at her opponent to render them senseless to come out victorious in confrontations, before and after she first met Joshua. Slowly letting the water flow out of her bill wasn't an unfamiliar sensation; it sometimes helped swallowing certain foods, such as meats. But she never directly _drooled_ into another living being's mouth, for any reason.

She knelt down beside her Master's upturned face. The skin was red and his hair was pressed against his forehead with his sweat. His mouth hung slack-jawed as he tried to use the larger air tunnel for breathing when his nose was too clogged with mucus to be of any use that way. His eyes were still closed, though she imagined that they were awfully bloodshot.

She hesitated for a moment, mentally prepping herself for her task (which was surprisingly difficult, given that her best weapon was her mind). What she was about to do was _gross, gross, gross,_ but it had to be done. This was definitely one of the less pleasant situations of being a Water-type Pokémon.

She placed a firm pad on the cleft of his chin, keeping his jaw open and holding his head in place so he wouldn't keep tossing and turning in his apparently distressing coma. It was a good thing that human diseases were not commutable to Pokémon, or else the fear of her catching her Master's 'influenza' would be just another unwanted problem on her plate. It was now or never, and, shutting her eyes tightly (not wanting to look at _anything_ as she committed this disgusting act, afraid that she might heave up something other than water), drew the opening in her bill close to her Master's open mouth, and began the utterly putrid act of 'Water-Gunning' into his mouth.

_Don't look, don't think, don't move, try not to breathe, _she recited in her mind over and over again, trying to keep her thoughts focused on anything except what she was currently doing. Joshua's heaving stopped and was replaced with the sound of liquid gently easing down the inside of his throat; she could feel it through her pad around his chin as well. She didn't plan on doing this for long; just long enough so that her Master would have his fill of water, and then everyone could put this disgusting act behind them and never bring it up in discussion again. _I should read his mind,_ she thought, her eyes still closed and the water still flowing, _to see when – no! Don't look, don't think, don't move, try not to breathe._ Her instance on sticking to her self-imposed creed was waning as seconds passed because it was difficult to focus on anything other than the very action she was doing. _I should never have told them how he was feeling._


	5. Chapter 5

It was a weird feeling. It felt something like that first few moments in the morning between when you wake up and you realize you're awake. But he didn't feel rested at all – in fact, he felt shattered to pieces, as if all his bones in his body had been ground to a find dust in the evening previous. Well, no, that wasn't entirely accurate: not _all_ his bones, just all his _lef__t_ ones. His entire right side felt moveable, but heavy and debilitating. What exactly had happened to him last night? Did he get into a fight?

He felt something tight, yet gentle just below his chin and wrapping around the front of his neck. Was he wearing a tie, or a turtleneck sweater, before going to bed last night? He tried wiggling his toes; they still felt tight and confined, thankfully confirming that no bones in his feet felt as atrocious as the ones in his body, but also confirming that he had worn his shoes before going to sleep. Whatever he was doing the night before was apparently _awesome _enough to exhaust him to the point of not removing even his shoes before bed. He just wished he could remember some of it. Did he beat the Elite Four or something? And why did he feel like he was throwing up his stomach juices at a massive pace?

He slowly opened his eyes to see where it was he was sleeping. His senses were slowly coming back to him – his eyes were remarkably itchy, but he couldn't muster up the strength to scratch them. Through the haze of his half-asleep vision, he could make out something huge and blue with some yellow that was pressing right up against his face. Whatever it was, it looked vaguely familiar, but at that moment in time he couldn't place his own name to himself, much less other people's names to faces. He closed his eyes again to keep them from getting any more itchy.

With his senses slowly returning, he suddenly realized that the feeling in his throat, of him throwing his lunch up, was actually backwards; liquid was forcing its way _down_, and he had been swallowing it reflexively. It was a bit of a shock for him when he realized the truth, and, on impulse, he coughed and gagged on the liquid, stopping any more making its way down his throat and, thankfully, stopping the source of the liquid as well. He rolled to his side and coughed up some more fluid, spilling it on the ground and all over his shirt. The shock to his system woke him up, fuelling him with enough adrenaline to at least get out of bed.

His left arm wouldn't move, as if something was holding it down, and it hurt him every time he tried to move it. So he instead leaned on his right elbow, angling his wrist up towards his eyes, and began to vigorously rub his eyes with his thumb and index finger, trying to get whatever was making them so itchy out. He sighed in relief as the irritation began to subside under his eyelids. After a few seconds of scratching his eyes, he finally opened them, to take in his surroundings – maybe he'd be able to remember what happened to him easier if he knew where he was.

He wasn't in a room at all. Not his room; not a friend's room; not in any dorm room at the Pokémon Academy; not a hotel room; and not in a hospital room. He was in a cave. An uncomfortably _bright_ cave, when he eyes landed on something that looked like a huge light bulb as soon as he opened them. It took his eyes some adjusting, but he finally managed to get them to cooperate and let him focus.

Surrounding him were Pokémon that he felt like he should remember. There was a black-and-blue lion, a red-and-orange dog, and black, blue-and-beige jackal, a huge turtle with a tree – wait, these were _his_ Pokémon. Of course he should remember them. Then, what cave were they all in? Oreburgh? Coronet? No, they were in Victory Road, he remembered now. He had gotten his last badge only a few days ago, so he crossed the ocean and started crossing the Road to get to the Pokémon League. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his tent, after tucking all of his Pokémon away once they had finished taking their calcium.

Okay, so, they're in Victory Road. If he remembered right, they were about two days of travelling into the cave, so it shouldn't have been too far to the exit. What was he doing out of his sleeping bag? And out of his tent, for that matter? What were all his Pokémon doing out of their Poké Balls? And why did he feel so destroyed, physically?

Another, unrelated realization suddenly came to him: fluid was making its way down his throat, and his Golduck was sitting on top of him when he woke up. So the only logical conclusion would be –

"Ugh," he grunted, flexing his throat muscles. We did his throat feel so sore? And why was he so sweaty, and why did he feel so warm? He also felt a little dizzy, which made no sense to him, since he'd been lying still for the past few hours. "Golduck," he finally managed to thrust out, his voice as raspy as sandpaper. "That's gross. What were you thinking?" Did she try to take...'advantage' of him in his sleep (and had admittedly creative ways of doing it)? He didn't remember Golduck ever being the especially assertive type, not even during her mating periods. Would it be mating season for Golduck now, and he just forgot?

"No way..." uttered Flareon. All of them had been dumbstruck for a moment when their Master rolled over onto his side, and Flareon was the first to say anything. Joshua was awake. Their Master was awake! She was still exhausted from pushing boulders around for a few hours, but screw petty things like 'energy' – she was ready to give her Master the pouncing of a lifetime.

Honchkrow saw the dog's body tense, as if she was going to jump onto some unsuspecting prey from over the tall grass. And she was pointed right at their Master as well. "Flareon, don't!" she immediately cawed, surprising everyone in earshot. "He's still hurt. Don't go jumping on him yet; you might make his injuries worse if you do."

That still wasn't going to stop Flareon from giving her awesome Master the nuzzling of the century. With a single bound she landed immediately next to him, and began scrubbing her fur right up against him, letting him know that she was there and then some. Her instance was actually pushing Joshua off to the side – not that anyone could blame her. She was soon joined by everyone else: Luxray and Honchkrow affectionately rubbed up against their Master, thankful to Arceus that he was finally awake. Lucario and Golduck, each having arms, insisted on wrapping them around his neck and nuzzled directly against his face that way. The only one who didn't join was Torterra; he was too afraid that he'd crush someone in his joyous reunion with his best friend.

Joshua had _no_ idea what was going on. It had only been one night, hadn't it? He hadn't gone far, and they were just in their Poké Balls in the meantime. Why was everyone so elated so see him awake? And why weren't they grossed out by Golduck's...'behaviour'?

"Uh," he said dumbly, calmly patting and hugging each of his team-mates with his good hand. "I love you all too, but what's with this reception? I've only been asleep for a few hours. Did you all really, really miss me or something? Is Victory Road scary at night?" Although his sarcastic questions had a flavour of confusion with them; why was he so beat up, and why were they all out of their capsules?

"You really don't remember?" Golduck asked him, pulling away to look him in the face – not that she expected an answer; to him it probably sounded like she just said her name a few times.

"Let me try," Lucario said, quickly getting his Master's attention. Joshua was surprised to see Lucario in the state that he was in: he looked positively worse than he was. What the hell had happened to them both? Were they blindsided by some Steelix or something? Did they get into a fight with each other? If the latter were the case, Joshua had certainly impressed himself, managing to do so much damage to a Fighting- and Steel-type Pokémon all by himself. It'd explain the tawdry condition of his clothes as well.

Lucario grabbed his Master's right hand between his own paws and directed them to his right armpit, under his torn T-shirt. Joshua didn't know what it was that Lucario was trying to tell him, when Lucario pressed gently on the skin around his right shoulder blade, and he suddenly felt some very localized pain around that area. The jackal released his grip on the human's wrist, and Joshua felt around his back awkwardly, trying to find where the pain had come from. He felt around his skin and found a number of holes in his muscles that were still scabbing over. How did he get _those?_

The memories came rushing back all at once. The Onix; the Golbat; the Aura Sphere; and falling off the cliff face. He had been attacked by a Golbat as he watched his Lucario fight his eighty-fourth Onix, and when Lucario managed to shoot the cursed thing off his shoulder, the recoil knocked him off the cliff, where he hit his head against a rock on the way down. He blacked out after that, but he didn't remember Lucario getting such serious wounds. The Onix wouldn't have had the chance to inflict any serious damage on him, so something must've happened after that.

"You were fighting an Onix," he recapped, looking Lucario in the eyes, "when I was attacked by a Golbat. And you managed to get it off me with an Aura Sphere – nice aim, by the way –"

"I never miss," he replied, smiling.

"But I fell off the cliff shortly after." That wiped the smile from Lucario's face. "I don't remember anything after that. I don't know how you got so beat up, or how you all managed to get out of your Poké Balls, or how we got to where we are. Where are we, anyway?" He wasn't expecting an answer, obviously, so he tried forcing himself to his feet to get a better view of the area. His entire torso body violently protested the action, and he tumbled back down when he found he couldn't support his own weight. It brought a concerned gasp from each of his Pokémon – Lucario and Golduck quickly grabbed him and gently supported him as he fell back down. The others tried to assist as well, but their lack of arms proved painfully evident.

"Help me up, would you, guys?" he asked, and the others gladly complied. Golduck climbed over Joshua's body towards his right side and placed a supportive arm underneath his; Lucario wrapped his arm around Joshua's back, knowing that his arm was dislocated at the elbow and it'd be a bad idea to lift him by it. Flareon quickly dashed under her Master's back and braced herself against him, much like she did with Luxray, easing him up some more and assuring him that he had something soft to land on if he fell back down. It took a gargantuan effort to lift his sore legs and brace them under him for support, but, they both eventually obeyed. His knees felt stiff and it was too painful to lock them, and his stomach hurt a lot (from an unrelated reason, though – he hadn't eaten since the morning of his falling off the cliff and whenever now was), so he was hunched over and walked like an old man without a cane. Regardless, he had the capability to stand under his own power, and when his feet were firmly planted on the dirt below him, he ushered his two bipedal friends away.

He stood a good deal taller than most of his Pokémon (except Honchkrow; their eyelevel was about the same in his bent position), even in his hunched over state. He gave the room a cursory look, trying to pinpoint landmarks and unique patterns or pathways that might help him remember where they were in Victory Road. What he saw were boulders: lots and lots of unnaturally round, huge, glowing white stones strewn all over the cave's floor. He remembered this puzzle; it wasn't so difficult to solve the first time, and it was mostly just an annoying speed bump in his journey to get to the exit, courtesy of the League. Although all the rocks had shifted from their original positions, and nothing was where they were supposed to be. Pathways were still open, and, with moving only a few more boulders in certain directions, it wouldn't be difficult to get to the way out of the room.

But the closest exit was the one that led back to Route 223, not farther into the cave. Why were they all more than halfway back through the cave, heading in the opposite direction?

Well, when he thought about it, the 'whys' of his questions weren't so difficult to understand. Both he and Lucario were in fact beaten to a barely recognizable pulp, and he had been unconscious since he had fallen off the cliff; so his Pokémon had probably dragged him this far in this direction.

"Stop me if I'm wrong," he said slowly, his mind trying to decipher the whole scenario – and with his mind still only half-awake, that wasn't an easy task. "I don't know how you got so injured, Lucario, or how the rest of you got out of your Poké Balls...but when I fell off the cliff, you all somehow got out and started carrying me back the way through Victory Road, back to the entrance." Torterra was standing right in front of him, so his questions were mostly directed straight at the tortoise. Torterra looked as happy as he was when Joshua first let him out of his Poké Ball years ago, and it made him just as happy to see his best friend and starter Pokémon delirious with such elation. "Am I right?"

"You're right," he replied, nodding so his Master would understand at least that much; "we carried you all the way here when you were injured a few days ago."

"But this is the upper floor of the cave," Joshua continued, looking around the room some more. "Which means we must've gone through the basement at some point. If you were all out of your Poké Balls by then, I can't even begin to imagine how you not only managed to get yourselves down, but how you got _me_ down as well." He turned to Golduck, the only Pokémon on his team capable of handling that sort of challenge. "I suppose I have you to thank for it though, Golduck. Am I right?" Everyone else responded for her, making conversation and trying to tell the story of how Golduck managed to carry each of them down the falls, including himself. "Okay, okay," he said, raising his hand to shush them all down, "I believe all of you. I mean, it's sort of unbelievable that you did all that by yourself – like, how the hell did you carry _Torterra_ down the waterfalls? He weighs...a lot! – but, that aside, you must've really went above and beyond for all of us when you did." Using his good arm, he wrapped it around Golduck's shoulders and pulled her into a weak yet meaningful embrace, the memory that she was essentially regurgitating water into his mouth not five minutes ago seemingly forgotten. "Thanks, Golduck." She was a bit surprised by the notion, but returned the hug in full.

"In fact, thank all of you," he said, releasing Golduck and looking over the rest of his team in appreciation. "She obviously didn't do all the work herself – this was a team effort, to get as far as this without the help of technology, all the while keeping me along for the ride when I couldn't walk or help myself." He started to get a little teary-eyed, just from thinking about it. Screw the League, and screw being the champion of Sinnoh: this was all the loyalty he really needed from his Pokémon. "I don't think I've ever been more proud of you all than right now. You really know how to make a guy feel important."

All of his Pokémon began to gather 'round him, and, with no other thought or concern about it, they all pressed tightly up against him; the three quadrupeds nuzzled comfortably up against his beaten legs; the two bipeds wrapped their arms around him in an embrace; and Honchkrow's large wings wrapped around the entire group (and half of Torterra). It was another group hug not unlike the one they all shared when their Master finally came to, but this one was much more emotional for them all. Those that had tear ducts shed a few. Their Master was alive and awake: this hell was almost over. They all stayed that way for a few moments, just enjoying the family embrace and the fact that things were only going to be looking up for here on out.

Minutes later, Joshua broke the enjoyable silence between them all. "Hate to be a mood killer," he said meekly. He sort of wanted this moment to last a little longer; because of what his Pokémon had done for him, he felt fully accomplished as a Trainer, and he wanted to bask in that feeling some more. But, considering the situation, there were priorities that couldn't go ignored. "But we need to leave. We can have another moment once we're all out of here."

"I agree," said Torterra, backing away from his Master. "We're not out of this mess yet. There's still a lot of the cave to get through."

"Does anyone know what happened to my backpack?" Joshua asked. "It'd be a really, really good thing if we still had it."

"We do!" Flareon barked happily, biting her Master's pant leg to get his attention. "It's on Torterra's tree!" She wasted no time in jogging over to Torterra and hoping on his large shell, her gaze pointed at the bright yellow bag still dangling there by the small leather hook at its top. It stood out among his tree's green leaves; Joshua had no idea how he missed it the first time.

"Thank goodness," he murmured. Lucario had already gotten the bag off the tree for his Master and presented it to him like a gift. "Put it on the ground. Let's see what's not ruined." He knew what he was looking for and wasted no time searching for it. The zipper into the main compartment of the backpack was still open from his Pokémon's earlier searches, so he didn't have to wrestle with it with only one good arm, fortunately. He sifted through the contents a bit – _It shouldn't be too close to the bottom_, he thought – when he wasn't finding it. His happy, confident eyes quickly melted into concern when he went through his entire backpack at least three times and turned up absolutely nothing for his efforts.

Searching through it the fourth time, he finally stopped and took a heavy sigh. "Guys," he began. He wasn't angry or disappointed, not from the tone of his voice, but he was worried and nervous about the answer they might give him. "What happened to the Escape Rope that was in here? Does anyone know?"

The entire team froze up, except for Honchkrow. She was going to enjoy the following answer after he mentioned the rope. They all turned to look at Golduck, who was white as a sheet, and remained silent, waiting for her to give her waiting Master her answer. "I, I," she stuttered a few times, getting Joshua's attention. Things weren't going very well for her in this cave. "I thought to use it back when you fell unconscious and we were going to turn around and get you back to the entrance of the cave. I didn't know how to work it, I tried everything! But I couldn't get it to do what you could make it do! So I..." she hesitated on the last part. She felt like she committed some deadly crime and was about to receive judgment for it. "I threw it away instead of putting it back. I'm sorry!" Her expression was clearly stressed and uneasy; she had a lot to deal with on this adventure and, even for the mentally-strong duck, it was beginning to wear her down. "I thought it was broken! I thought it was defunct! A dud! I didn't know it could still work! Believe me, I wouldn't have thrown it away if I thought it...!"

Joshua waited a few seconds after she was finished to make sure that she didn't have anything to add after that. "I have no idea what you just said," he replied, getting a soft chuckle from Honchkrow, "but you clearly had something to do with it." Golduck knew that her Master wouldn't have understood a word, but she let it all fly out anyway, in her stress. Joshua guessed correctly, at least...and he was smiling. He didn't seem to mind. "That's okay, Golduck," he continued, using his good hand to message the back of her head affectionately in an effort to calm her down. "I trust that you had your reasons, and it's not the end of the world. We can still get out of here easily enough without it." His words seemed to be working: Golduck was relaxing, although the stress in her face wasn't entirely gone. "For future reference, though, if you ever want to make an Escape Rope work, all you have to do is tie any kind of knot in it anywhere on its length, and it'll do its job."

Golduck had never thought of doing that. She arranged the rope into every kind of position and pattern she could think of when she had it, but she never thought of tying a knot in it anywhere. Such subtle brilliance...! Whoever designed the rope to work like that was a genius!

"Well, using the Escape Rope is out. But don't worry, I have a plan B." He opened another pocket in his backpack – a hidden one located on the inside of the main compartment, used for holding smaller items and trinkets. In it was his Pokédex, an item required for every Trainer to have before even considering they go out to train Pokémon. Along with it being an encyclopaedia of every kind of known Pokémon in existence, it had every bit of personal information that anybody would need if the Trainer needed to prove his or her identity, or in case something had happened. From names to birth dates to phone numbers. It also served as a portable phone; a small computer with wireless internet; and a debit card of sorts. Most everybody had a Pokédex: they were cheap to buy, free for Trainers, and served as an multi-purpose tool for everyday social life, so even people who didn't train Pokémon could be seen owning a Pokédex.

He flipped it open to the main screen, where a plethora of different buttons were available, from a standard keyboard found of every computer in Sinnoh to a touch-tone-phone's twelve button interface, along with a number of miscellaneous buttons relating to the operation of the Pokédex, including scrolling through the Pokémon encyclopaedia. But the screen appeared half shattered, and the whole device was sticky and smelled of berries. It must've been damaged when he fell off the cliff – he could only imagine the condition of his medicines if the sturdy Pokédex was broken. Most potions and medicines were encased in tough plastic, but if the metallic Pokédex was in this bad a shape, there's no telling how badly the medicines might be damaged.

He pressed and held the power button for a moment. The blue light that rested on the very top of the device flickered slightly, and an unsuspecting spark flew out of the device when the batteries were shocked into working, making Joshua jump in surprise. It took a few attempts from the Pokédex, but eventually the light stabilized and hummed the entire device to life.

"Dexter, you there?" Joshua asked. Of course the Pokédex wasn't going to respond, although it did have a voice for reading Pokémon entries. Under normal conditions the screen came on immediately after the blue light stabilized, but because it was heavily damaged, it took a moment longer to do so. And when it did, the screen was completely blank: a grey cascade upon the electronic canvas. But it worked, at the very least.

His Pokémon began to crowd around him, half for protection against the increasingly active local life (it had been hours since breakfast, so they were likely searching for some food for lunch at that point) and half out of interest of what he was doing. The first thing he noted was the time: the L.E.D. readout for the clock was separate from the screen, and was functioning well enough. He had been asleep for about three days, but if since it was only noon, they could make it back to the entrance of the cave by the end of the day if they hurried. Joshua pressed a few buttons on his keypad and waited patiently for something to happen, then sighed in disappointment a few moments later. "I can't seem to get an internet signal in here," he told his group. None of them knew what an 'internet' was. "That means we have no communication with the outside world. We can't contact anyone telling them that we're stuck...and since there's no internet, chances are good that the phone's useless, too. If we want to get out of here, we need to do it ourselves."

Joshua seemed entirely stoic by all the bad news surrounding him, though. Despite the constant pain emanating from half his body, his spirits were still high from his Pokémon and their inspirational devotion to him. They carried him more than halfway through the cave; they can keep going, no sweat. He powered down his Pokédex and replaced it in his pants pocket.

His eyes had spied a can of lemonade that was resting on the inside of the bag, and the sight of it reminded him of how thirsty he was. And he suddenly came to a realization with that – Golduck wasn't trying to 'take advantage' of him in his sleep. She must've realized how thirsty he was and did something brave – and extremely embarrassing – to help him out. If he was as thirsty as he was now before Golduck did what she did, he must've been absolutely parched before that.

He turned to Golduck with the can of lemonade in his hand. "Golduck, when I first woke up, you were...um, 'Water-Gunning' into my mouth." She didn't respond and blushed in deep embarrassment, averting her eyes and taking to looking at the ground off to the side instead. "If I'm as thirsty as I am now, and after you did that, then I can't imagine how thirsty I was before I woke up. You must've realized that and tried to help, right?" Her gaze returned to his, nodding furiously and confirming his theory. She was backed by the confirming yips of the other Pokémon. "I'm sorry that I yelled at you, then. You were only trying to help, and I appreciate it." His left arm couldn't move and his right hand was occupied, so rather than give her a thankful pat on the shoulder like he would've done reflexively, he instead flashed her a happy smile. "You're a real piece of work, Golduck, I hope you know."

"He's right," Luxray said, leaning against the duck appreciatively, careful to not give her an errant static shock from his fur. "You and Flareon have been working the hardest to get us out of here. From the trip with the waterfalls to giving us breakfast to smashing open blockades to moving boulders around to acting as watchmen and scouts." He got off of Golduck and went to Flareon, lowering his head to meet hers, and gave her a few loving nudges. "You two are awesome, you know that?" It was the medicine Golduck needed to relieve her of her stress; a simple 'thank you'. Even while still physically spent, she felt like she could climb a mountain now.

Flareon felt no different from Golduck. While she felt a little tired from her earlier labour and her cry, hearing Luxray say that about her gave her enough willpower to practically go up to the first boulder and _toss_ it out of the way. "I love you too, Luxray!" she said, returning the loving nudges. The fiery orange tufts of fur on her body began to increase in temperature in response to the affection.

Joshua didn't wait any longer to crack open the can of lemonade, placing his finger inside the small metal ring and pulling it upwards, causing the metal on the convex end of the can to tear open with a hiss. Lucario paid attention to the action – he knew that he would never have been able to figure it out himself (although that didn't mean he still wouldn't have tried, had Golduck given him the chance), so if he was presented with the chance again, he could open the can himself, without ripping the whole thing apart.

The contents of the can were gone in no time flat. He took no time to breathe when he first began to chug it, thirsty as he was. When it was empty, he put the can back into another unopened pocket in his backpack. "What else to do..." he thought aloud to himself, sifting through the bag some more, when he got to the Pokémon medicine tucked neatly into a corner pocket of his bag. Why his first reaction upon seeing Lucario wasn't to reach into his backpack and take out some Hyper Potions, like any logical Trainer would, escaped himself, but rather than beat himself up over it, he was just going to act on it now. "Lucario, come here, would you?" Lucario complied loyally, and was overjoyed when he saw the potions and medicines all lined up for him. Since the cave-in, he was still limping and his left shoulder still hurt intensively. Only a trip to the Poké Centre would make him feel one-hundred percent again, but this pick-me-up was more than welcome.

"This'll sting," Joshua said redundantly; Lucario knew the procedure, front to back. The welcome sting of the liquid spray covering his wounds flared on his skin, giving a familiar burning sensation of the Potion doing its work. The spray covered each of his cuts and bruises, and it initially hurt like hell, but when the stinging subsided he felt good as new, ready to take on some more Onix. The muscles no longer cramped in his legs, curing him of his limp, and while his fur was still red with blood in the few places that he bled, each of his cuts had sealed and mended nicely. Any pains he had directly in his bones remained, however, such as his left shoulder from that one Medicham.

Joshua placed the used potion spray into his 'garbage' pocket in his backpack and pulled out another one; this one a Max Ether instead. "Golduck, please come–" She was already there, waiting for hers. She didn't look so beaten up as Lucario, but from how much work she must've done to get them all the way where they were, it was impressive that she wasn't so tired she couldn't stand. Ethers were different from Potions in that they're not sprays: they're drinks, in a peculiarly shaped container, to be ingested. Much like an energy drink for humans, but specially modified for Pokémon. If a human were to drink it, it'd make him or her nauseous for a few hours.

He pressed the button on the front of the canister, which flipped open the top on the other end, revealing a small hole for the liquid to pour out. "Open wide," he said casually, and Golduck complied quickly, ready for the energy boost she so desperately wanted. Joshua noticed her eyes before giving her the liquid: they looked exhausted, as if they hadn't slept for weeks. He gently poured the drink into her bill, and she swallowed eagerly – the drink tasted absolutely atrocious, but it worked wonders. She felt like a new duck already, the weariness already gone from her eyes.

He was about to place the empty canister into its pocket, when he noticed the holes in Golduck's shoulders. They had freshly scabbed over. "Whoa, whoa, Golduck!" he called, getting her to freeze in her tracks. She turned to face her Master inquisitively.

"Yes?"

"Turn around for a second." She knew that he must've seen the injuries in her back. Hesitantly, she turned, and Joshua limped his way up to her, looking at the scabs in her shoulder blades. They didn't look particularly inhibiting from their locations, but judging from the depth of the wounds she must have lost a lot of blood before they finally sealed themselves over. How did this happen? There weren't a lot of wild Pokémon in the cave with claws, and these holes were too large for teeth.

"I got them from crashing into a rock going down the waterfall once." She kept telling that story to herself, trying to convince herself that it was true. She knew her Master didn't understand her, though, and even if he did, he wouldn't believe her for a second.

"These look like claw marks," he said when she finished her explanation. "There aren't any Pokémon in Victory Road with claws, and a Golbat couldn't have done this with its teeth. Where did you get these marks from? Did one of us do it to you?"

Flareon understood that last part, and she whimpered apologetically, keeping herself low to the ground in submission. "Flareon, you did this to Golduck?" She remained low, lifting her eyes to meet his with a look of serene apology in her eyes. She felt absolutely awful about what she had done, obviously, and it didn't take a translator for Joshua to know that she confirmed his theory.

Golduck, on the other hand, was giving Joshua a look that told him to forgive the small dog. She clearly had; whatever had happened was an accident or totally unavoidable, if Golduck had forgiven Flareon for the injuries so quickly. "You look like you want me to forgive Flareon for what happened," he said, looking for Golduck to give him a sign that he was right. She simply nodded. He hummed to himself in thought – Golduck was the victim, and if she said it was alright, then it was alright. But still, this wasn't very good for building teamwork relations. "Then I guess it's alright, Flareon. Don't worry about it. It's nothing that can't be fixed."

Commanding Golduck to follow him with a motion of his good hand, he reached into his backpack and withdrew another Potion. This one was smaller and had a different colouration from the one used on Lucario. It was the weaker Super Potion; since Golduck only had two wounds compared to Lucario's completely broken body, the spray wouldn't have to cover as much skin, so using a whole Hyper Potion would've been a waste. He sprayed both of the wounds liberally until there was no more Potion to use. She had been wincing and sharply inhaling from the stings the whole time, but when he was done, she couldn't even feel the wounds anymore, as if they had never been there in the first place. She was physically perfect now; all she needed now was a good sleep.

"Flareon, you're next," he called, putting the spent Potion into its appropriate pocket and pulling out another Ether. This one was the same size as the one Golduck had, but its colour was different – this was a Super Ether, she knew. "I don't know how long we've been up here pushing rocks around," he said, kneeling to the fiery canine and pressing on the button on the drink with his thumb, opening the bottle. "But you're the only one with the strength to move the boulders around. Lucario couldn't have been doing it if he was barely able to stand, and from how tired you look, you must've been doing it for hours." Joshua was very good at this whole 'deduction' thing; a trait his Torterra admired and tried to duplicate whenever the situation called for it.

Giving Flareon the Ether reminded him of when she was just a newborn Eevee way back near the start of his adventure, having to treat the puppy with bottled milk. He was awful at being a parent, he thought, having no experience with human children. Although with his Flareon being this loyal to him he must've done _something_ right along the way. The Ether was gone in no time flat, and Flareon looked as though she had been reborn; a new Pokémon, with all the strength and stamina of the world, and looking as though she had just found her father again. It was a heart-warming experience for him.

"Speaking of strength, let me see that machine in your neck." She happily obliged and turned around, offering her fiery red mane for the human to poke through. Sifting through the Pokémon's fur, he found a very, very small bump just under the skin of her neck. That was the 'hidden' machine that gave Flareon such amazing strength. They were nicknamed as such because 'hidden' machines were buried under the skin of the Pokémon that imbued them with their respective abilities. 'Technical' machines, by contrast, only latched onto the surface of the skin, making them easy to remove, but were generally disfavoured because they only had a one-time use – upon deactivation, they will never turn on again. From an outside perspective it appeared to be functioning properly. "Good, it seems to be working just fine. I was worried that you might've been straining it from all the work you've been doing lately." He gave Flareon a pat on the head and moved on to Luxray, checking for his 'hidden' machine that caused his claws to become unnaturally hard and sharp, allowing him to cut down numerous obstacles in their paths. Although he doubted it had seen a lot of use since he fell unconscious, it'd still be a good idea to make sure all of the 'hidden' machines were working correctly.

With some effort (and some help from his Pokémon) he managed to get onto Honchkrow's back and check her machines; one 'technical' and the other 'hidden'. The 'hidden' machine gave her wing flaps extraordinary strength, giving her enough lift to carry a passenger as high into the sky as she could fly. It was functioning correctly. He checked Lucario's next; his machine gave him an uncanny sense of balance and upper body strength, allowing him to lift both himself and his Trainer up a craggy rock face with minimal effort. It was functioning, but it appeared damaged: whatever caused Lucario to get so beat up must have damaged the machine in the process. He'd need to get a more in-depth check later, but for now Joshua could only assume that it was best to not use it at all.

Torterra had no 'hidden' machines of his own, but he had at least one 'technical' machine located just between his neck and his shell. It was an 'Unlocker', as Joshua liked to call it: while Torterra could learn the attack the machine gave him naturally, the machine allowed him to unlock the same attack before he would, with no negative consequences. The machine on Torterra gave him the powerful Ground-type attack 'Earthquake', which imbued his body with enough crushing force to split the ground apart with a stomp. It was an impulse buy when he first visited Vielstone's department store, back when Torterra was still a Grotle. Though useless against Flying-types and the rare Pokémon that mysteriously floated just off the ground, it was devastatingly powerful against most others – including his own friends. An unfortunate side-effect he discovered shortly after having the machine placed on him. All that aside, the machine was working correctly.

The last Pokémon to check was Golduck. She had _three_ 'hidden' machines latched into her skin: one which increased her swimming ability to the point of being able to accommodate people or items several times heavier than herself; one which gave her the core strength to be able to swim upstream at such a steep angle that she was capable of scaling entire waterfalls (combined with her other machine, she was practically unrivalled in swimming strength, except when it came to beasts of legendary skills, such as the ferocious Gyarados or the mythological Lugia); and a contradictory machine that gave her enough fighting strength in her arms to crush boulders. Each of them were functioning correctly.

Joshua was beginning to feel worse and worse with each movement he made. He was dizzy, and had difficulty balancing with each step (compounded with how only half of his body seemed willing to cooperate at all); and he felt too warm for their location. The cave was humid and with no ventilation anywhere, so it was noticeably warmer than the outside world, but he still felt like his skin was boiling quite a bit more than it should be. His throat was feeling worse with each breath, and he was sweating from almost every possible pore on his body. He already knew that he wasn't going to be able to walk himself out of the cave, but until they started again, he could at the very least carry himself around the group.

He swayed back and forth in his movements; he moved progressively slower as time passed; and more than one he rested his head in his good hand, trying to force himself back awake, when all he really wanted was to just go back to sleep. His condition was not unnoticed by his team; Luxray, particularly, had taken to keeping close to his Master in case he would need help balancing, or to catch if he began to fall entirely.

"Have any of you had any sleep since I fell unconscious?" he asked, his own exhaustion reminding him of the others. Honchkrow was in his immediate line of sight: she nodded for them. "How long ago was it? A few hours?" It had been...about four or five hours since breakfast, so a 'few' was an accurate-enough qualifier. She nodded again. Joshua hummed in thought; it had been three days to get this far...and Torterra's admittedly not the speediest Pokémon in the world...and the whole deal with the waterfalls in the basement would've taken quite a while with Golduck working by herself, assuming she took breaks after every trip, and from the look in her eyes, she didn't...

"I don't think you guys have been getting enough sleep," he declared. It was an odd thing to mention right at this very moment, but, he was right – they've had two breaks so far, but without any decent rest, the journey was taking its toll on all of them. "I agree that getting out of this cave is a big priority, but if we don't pace ourselves, we'll wind up doing more harm to ourselves than good." His good hand went to his waist, reaching for a Poké Ball, as he spun to look at Golduck. "Golduck, I think you've worked yourself to the bone for our benefit, so–" His hand was grasping at air. He looked down at his waist: _all _of his Poké Balls were missing. And the clamps on his belt were either gone completely or damaged beyond repair. "What the hell?" he asked no one, searching the ground around them for the balls. They were gone. "What happened to my Poké Balls?"

Lucario understood the question. He stepped forward, to get his Master's attention. "It was my fault," he said simply, wisely not wasting his breath by further explaining the situation in a language Joshua could not comprehend. He raised a paw to his chest as well, 'pointing' to himself, indicating that he had something to do with the inquiry.

Joshua looked his Pokémon in the eyes, thinking how Lucario could've used the Poké Balls. It sounded a little farfetched at first, since Pokémon don't instinctively know how to work with anything man-made, especially not with something that flew over his own head so effortlessly (just exactly how _do_ Pokémon get into and out of the Balls the way they do? The question has haunted him ever since he knew their function, and no Pokémon professor could give him a clear answer). Although, it wasn't hard to just give them a light toss, and Lucario's probably been in enough team battles to notice that himself. It would explain how all of the other Pokémon were out and about, and why the hinges on his belt were broken – he didn't know how to get them off the belt, save for brute force, which he was good at.

"That's a bit of a problem, then," he sighed. Once a Poké Ball is purchased, they will not function unless they establish a link with the Trainer's Pokédex, which is done wirelessly but manually (which provides a hassle almost not worth having when buying in bulk. Faster methods are being researched constantly). This is so, when a Pokémon is caught, the Poké Ball can 'imprint' a code into the Pokémon's genetic makeup – the code being the Trainer's I.D., which is an integral part of the Pokédex. This code makes it impossible for another Trainer to 'recapture' an already-caught Pokémon: since the target already has a code 'imprinted' into them, the Poké Ball will not function and will instead bounce off of the target. However, a Trainer cannot 'recapture' his _own_ Pokémon for the same reason. Empty Poké Balls don't check to see if I.D.s match when they're thrown at the target; they only check for any I.D. at all, since the former method would require too much computing time over a wireless connection, and every possible second is required for some of the bigger catches. Although the possibility of a scenario where the Trainer needed to recapture his Pokémon did not escape the designers of the original Poké Ball: the Trainer could either 'delete' the code via his or her Pokédex, effectively 'releasing' the Pokémon, or, if the Pokémon hasn't been recalled to its Poké Ball after a week, the code disintegrates naturally.

All of this was covered in the Academy, and Joshua remembered a question related to this being on the final exam. He could try to bluff his way through his Pokédex to delete the codes, but since he never released any of his Pokémon before, he wouldn't have any idea what he was trying to do, and might wind up doing something else entirely. "Never mind, then, guys. It looks like we have to grin and bear it a while longer."

Was he forgetting anything? He issued the Potions and Ethers; he tried his Pokédex and the Escape Rope; he checked his Poké Balls, to see if he could at least get his team some rest; he checked each of their 'machines'… the only thing that came to mind was how hungry they all must've been, including himself, and how long it's been since any of them had had a chance to use the washroom. Well, himself more so than the others, on the latter issue.

"Alright," he sighed again. His condition wasn't getting any better. "I just gotta go take a leak, guys, and then we can get moving again."

"That means he wants some privacy," Lucario said when the others didn't understand the analogy. Joshua didn't go far – just behind some neck-high rocks – and quickly went about his business. Having not 'gone' for three-and-a-half days, and since he was sick, he was surprisingly pent-up; he wound up standing there a lot longer than he predicted.

"Has Torterra been the one carrying me all this way?" he asked when he returned. All of them shook their heads negatively, all at once. "No?" he asked, intrigued. "Torterra would've had the easiest time carrying me. I weigh less than two-hundred pounds, and you, Torterra…" He looked the Pokémon in the eyes. It would've been rude to talk about him like he wasn't there when he was. "You weigh something like eight-hundred. I would've been a feather to you, compared to the freaking mountain you have on your shell. I'm just saying; it'd probably be better if you carried me the rest of the way through the cave." He paused a moment. That seemed cruel to him, treating Torterra like some kind of showcase Ponyta, without an explanation. "I don't…feel so good. My injuries aside. I don't think I could walk myself out of here."

His needing help walking aside, Joshua was incorrect – while the human did only weigh a quarter of the Pokémon, he was still awfully heavy to carry over longer distances. It was difficult to explain that to him, though, and, against his better judgment, he began shouldering the weight of his Master upon his shell earlier than he anticipated, and possibly for a much longer time. The weight would eventually get to him.

"Torterra," Luxray whispered, getting up close to the huge tortoise, "are you okay with this?"

It took him a moment to answer. On the one hoof, it'd go against his very personality – it'd go against practically everything that made him what he was – to disobey his Master's decisions. But on the other, this decision was quite obviously wrong. "I'll," he began, seemingly struggling with the words. "I'll tell you guys when I want him off. I can take him for now, but eventually I will need to trade with someone."

"I'll take him again, when that time comes," the lion responded.

"Flareon," Joshua called, ignoring the conversation between his two oldest Pokémon. "Get ready to push some more boulders, girl."

"Right!" she yelped cheerfully, all the depression from her earlier failure evaporated: she knew she'd do a better job with someone else at the helm, and since it was Joshua, she was entirely reinvigorated. She dashed up to the closest boulder and rested her right flank against it. She still felt weak and sore from the earlier pushing, but her Master gave her rejuvenated strength just by being him.

Joshua could see over the boulders if he stood up straight, but with him sitting atop Torterra, his view had expanded even further than before. "Push that boulder forward twice…now, push it to your left once…see that other boulder to your right? Push it forward once…" It took some doing to get through the maze, especially with Flareon's earlier blind blunders so evident in the puzzle, but with Joshua awake, they found themselves at the mouth of the level in only a few minutes.

They could practically smell the fresh air from there.


	6. Chapter 6

It would be at least another half-day's journey to reach the mouth of the cave, at the pace they were going. The path going from the cave's entrance to the 'upstairs' was entirely straightforward with no disorienting turns or forks, but the fallen rocks and stalactites hid the path convincingly most of the time; sometimes obliterating portions of the path itself, forcing the team to recreate it for their own convenience. The usual Medicham, Machoke, Graveler and occasional Onix were all still present, though their activity had increased sharply with the debris along the floors. The Golbat cloaked the ceiling – no change there – but their activities weren't due for another four to six hours. This worried them all, since the Golbat would be most active at or around the time the group is expected to reach their destination.

By Joshua's instruction, Honchkrow was leading the group for now. She was a big bird, and the local ground-life knew all too well what wings looked like thanks to the bats. Joshua's gambit was that the Fighting-types would realize that she was a Flying-type, and back off. She was as equally vulnerable to them as a part-Dark-type, but he was hoping that they didn't know that – and he seemed to be correct in that assumption so far. The Rock-types, however, were indifferent to anything that flew, and were aggressive whenever the group came too close. Not that they were a problem; having three other types to counter Rock proved effective in pacifying the wildlife.

Joshua had accurately guessed that a cave-in had occurred sometime when he fell unconscious shortly after arriving to the 'floor'. Not many things could shake the ceiling so clean of rocks and roosts, and all the other Trainers had seemed to disappear as well. No Pokémon had the strength to rip a mountain apart like this, not even with the most powerful Magnitude attack (well, he had heard legends, but no Pokémon in or near Victory Road, at least), and Sinnoh had never been struck with a natural earthquake before, so it had to have been a cave-in. The only thing that could cause it was an explosion of tremendous magnitude – or maybe just one really well-placed average explosion, which a Graveler could've accomplished. They loved blowing themselves up over anything (which was actually a stereotype on the Graveler's part – it was often only used as a last-ditch attempt at escape, but when an experienced Trainer forced them to that 'last-ditch' part so often, their reputations quickly soured). Since Lucario had to have been out of his Poké Ball at the time, he would've been caught in it, explaining his injuries.

There were few man-made bridges in Victory Road, and unsurprisingly, they had been crushed in the disaster. Not that they would've made a difference, ultimately; not with Torterra's weight. They only proved as shortcuts through the cave, though (with a League-hired Trainer guarding each one – the 'toll' for taking the bridge, as it were); the long ways around were still intact and were traversable fairly enough.

The trip was quiet, barring the occasional territorial Pokémon. Joshua wasn't feeling well at all during the trip, though. His temperature continued to climb at a very slow pace, giving him a flushed, exhausted look. He kept his cool by pressing some aluminium cans of lemonade and soda against his bare flesh, but it wasn't helping his condition. Of all the things to stock up on for the journey through the cave, he didn't account for human medicine, so he wanted to reach the end of the cave as soon as they could. His occasional coughing and dozing off worried the rest of them.

Evidence of other Trainers being in the cave was everywhere. From garbage to what remained of some pitched tents to assorted dropped knick-knacks that Joshua knew he would find some decent use for: from Potions to Revives to Pokémon medicines. He even found an Ultra Ball among the mess. But the number one thing that caught his eye was a small plastic container, which looked to be an odd cross between a Potion and an Ether. It had a transparent green glass section lining its bottom, displaying the contents for anyone that bothered to look in. The container had a sturdy frame, much thicker than an Ether's. He had never seen anything quite like it before.

He looked the entire device over carefully, and ran his hands all over the plastic. He felt some uneven etchings along the top of the case, and flipped the case over to get a look at what they were. They were words; unconventionally small words that he had to squint to see, even when he held the device right up to his face. From it, he could make out a symbol, the name 'Silph', and 'Full Restore'.

"Whoa", he whispered under his breath. He had learned of Full Restores in the Academy and worked with some of its ingredients in his mandatory chemistry classes, but he had never actually seen one up close. They were far too pricey for a guy like him to afford, and the only place that sold it commercially was the Indigo Plateau, requiring everyone who didn't have front-door access to the Pokémon League to import, which would add to its ungodly sum. He had heard stories that the Elite Four could get as many as they wanted for free with their 'special' licenses, and apparently, the Trainers hired by the League could get one or two extra as well. Whoever had the carelessness to drop it was in a serious hurry.

These things had the power of a Pokémon Centre in them: give one to a Pokémon, and it'll be as rejuvenated as it would be from a trip to one of the many hospitals. _Golduck could really benefit from something like this_, he thought, _but how am I supposed to open it?_

On the bottom of the container was the tiniest of slits in the plastic. It must be how the Trainer gets the liquid out of the container and to the Pokémon, but it was held closed by two more plastic flaps that Joshua saw no way of opening. There was no button anywhere on its case; no lever or switch; no instructions, either. The properties of the panacea were discussed thoroughly in school, but lessons on how to open the case were skimped. Or maybe he missed that day. Either way, he hadn't any idea on how to open it.

He examined it further; he shook the container; he knocked on every inch of its plastic frame; and he even contemplated breaking the glass, but decided against it. He butted the bottom end of the container against the fat of his thigh and, with surprising urgency and shock, discovered that that was how the container was opened. You butted the bottom end of the container against what you want to use it on.

One of the things that made Full Restores different from Potions, which were sprays, and Ethers, which were drinks, was its delivery. Full Restores were neither. The slit on the bottom of the canister housed an automatic syringe that burst forward whenever adequate shock was applied and lodged itself directly into the skin of the subject immediately. In his haste to discover how to open it, Joshua unwittingly stuck the syringe into his leg, and the device, designed to react immediately, began pumping the juice directly into his blood.

He immediately pulled the syringe back out, shouting and wincing all the while, rousing the shocked concern of his friends. The device kept pumping out the chemicals into the air; it wasn't designed to retract its syringe until the canister was empty, and was wasting the juice by squirting it into nothing.

In his panic, Joshua did manage to regain some sense from the catastrophe, and immediately recalled who he wanted to use the Full Restore on. "Golduck!" he shouted, his voice rife with too many emotions to accurately pinpoint exactly one. "Get over here _now!_" Even with the Full Restore wasting away, and even with _much_ bigger issues on his mind, he still intended to give what he could to Golduck. He was thankful that the syringe didn't need to be sterilized, either, since human diseases were not commutable to Pokémon.

Golduck didn't hesitate in the least little bit, hearing her Master's frantic and hyperactive voice. She immediately ran to his side, ready to provide any service he asked of her. She wasn't very good at biology – especially human biology – and just hoped he didn't ask her to get the Full Restore out of his blood system somehow. But she knew he had something particular in mind.

Joshua's right thigh was beginning to get numb from the injection, bringing the human to his knees when he couldn't support himself on either of his legs. It'd only be a matter of time before the full effects of the Full Restore would grab hold of him, and with his adrenaline pumping and his heart racing, it'd probably happen much faster than the books said. And it probably won't mix well with his flu, either. "This is going to hurt," he said exasperatedly, and quickly thrust this still-squirting syringe straight into Golduck's left bicep.

Golduck's immediate reaction was shock and fear. She never had a syringe stuck into her in her life. One of the rules of thumb of the wild was that pointy things generally hurt if you touch them. And the syringe was certainly sharp. She felt it dig into her skin and tear through her muscle, lodging itself clean into her body and pumping the foreign contaminant directly into her blood. She could _feel_ all that, and it was an entirely unpleasant feeling. Her eyes went as wide and panicked as her Master's, though his expression had a hint of knowing to it while hers was more plainly displayed with confusion. Why would her Master do this to her? Had he flipped his lid? Was the chemical making him act this way, and if so, why was he injecting it straight into her? It only took five seconds, and by then she felt more betrayed than she ever had, with Joshua's one, insane action.

The other Pokémon seemed to agree with how Golduck was feeling. Even Torterra, who would take a Hyper Beam to the face for his Master, was completely aghast at his Master's one swift action. Even _Honchkrow_, who particularly enjoyed senseless malice and wasn't even the best of friends with Golduck, thought that her Master had gone off the deep end and was worried for the both of them. Luxray, Lucario and Flareon all bore shocked, confused and scared expressions, respectively, and they were all shouting their Master's human name and Golduck's, among other concerned cries for her safety.

Golduck quickly sent her right pad to the plastic device lodged into her arm, intent on pulling it out before it could do any more damage to either herself or Joshua. "No!" he yelled. His grip on the device was light, but he could swear he was putting everything he had into holding it in place. "Don't take it out, Golduck!" He was in a weak state, and he knew she could overpower him physically if she really wanted to. Her eyes locked with his, her expression asking a million and one questions all at once, with the most prominent being a simple 'why?' "Just," he tried to begin, feeling the numbness quickly spreading up his body. "Please, just trust me." His own expression pleaded with her to not remove the syringe from her arm. It wasn't often that Joshua asked something of her with such urgency – and because of that, Golduck, as scared and confused as she was, complied, staying her shaking pad and allowing the machine to finish its function.

Comfortable that Golduck understood his desperation, he removed his hand from the Full Restore. The device stayed attached to her, using the syringe in her arm as leverage. When it was done what it was built to do, the syringe would retract, and it would simply fall off.

He let go of Golduck, but took no time to stop and quickly crawled over to a frightened and nervous Lucario. Amongst all the shouting, he couldn't hear anything Joshua was saying, and Golduck's body prevented him from getting a clear look at his face, so he was entirely in the dark over his Master's actions. Though, by reading his face, Lucario could tell that his Master was clearly scared to death of something, which only worried the jackal all the more.

The numb feeling had travelled up his torso and was crawling down his arms. He could still move them fair enough, but he was losing the feeling in them rather quickly, and didn't notice when his knuckles dragged across the rocky floor of the cave, cutting the skin on his hands badly. Full Restores were not fatal to humans at any dosage, but in less than a minute, he'd be seeing and feeling the full effects of the 'panacea'.

"Lucario!" he gasped, throwing himself onto his Pokémon. Lucario caught Joshua in his arms, looking down at the human at his complete mercy. His Master's eyes began to water, out of sheer fear of what the Full Restore was going to do to him. It looked to Lucario that whatever his Master wanted to do for him was a very serious matter of life and death.

"Lucario!" he shouted again. The numbness had travelled up to his jaw, making his words slurred and his pronunciations sloppy. "I need you to knock me out!"

He could hardly believe his ears. "You want me to _what_?!" he shouted back, his earlier feared and concerned expressions vanishing under his disbelief of what his Master was asking for him to do.

"What does he want?" Honchkrow asked, a little loudly over the other three's worried yips over Golduck and Joshua. She heard him say the words well enough, but the meanings behind those words were lost beneath the slurring and their usage.

"He wants me to knock him out!" he replied, quickly gaining Torterra's and Luxray's attention.

"_Lucario_!" Joshua screamed. He needed him to do it _now_. His hearing was beginning to slip – every sound around him slowly faded out, replaced with a high-pitched whine as if he had been standing too close to the speakers at a concert for too long. Soon his vision would begin to distort, and reports from people who have been shot up from Full Restores – both for scientific purposes and by accident – were not pretty when they got to that stage.

Lucario was clearly conflicted with the ultimatum. It was a direct, desperate order, but the order was to do something he couldn't possibly do in good conscience. "Guys?!" he yelped, turning to Torterra, Luxray and Honchkrow. "Should I do it?!"

"No!" Torterra immediately commanded.

"Yes!" Honchkrow immediately commanded.

"That's not helping!"

"Do it, Lucario!" Luxray immediately commanded. It was uncommon for him to side with Honchkrow over Torterra in most arguments. "He must have a reason for wanting you to knock him senseless. Do what he says; help him out!"

"Don't do it, Lucario," Torterra said lowly, obviously pulling rank, which was highly unusual for him. "We came this far to wake him up; I'm not about to see him get knocked out _again_ just a few hours later. He's not feeling well; it might be affecting his judgment. Whatever problem he's facing, we can help him see it through."

Lucario was put in the worst possible scenario for a Pokémon like himself: being given one order from the Alpha, and a conflicting order from the Omega. He had absolutely no idea who to follow in this situation.

Joshua's grip slipped from Lucario's shoulders. The jackal turned his gaze back into the human's, to see a startling sight: his Master's face was generally emotionless, but his pupils had shrunk to a pinpoint size. His eyes were as wide as saucers, and he had suddenly broke out in a fierce sweat. The noise from the group had settled – Flareon and Golduck calmed down after they learned that Golduck was beginning to feel much better as time passed – to focus on the suddenly blank Trainer. A few seconds later, a look of sheer terror was passing over his face.

The final effect a Full Restore has on a human is affecting their visual perception and their ability to comprehend what it is they're seeing. Each time a human was stuck up with the medicine, they each told stories of the most terrifying, nightmarish things they had seen towards the middle of the trip. Joshua was entering that phase of the trip right now, and was desperate enough to avoid it by asking his Pokémon to knock him out before he could.

The world around him began to swirl and blend their colours, locking him into a type of psychedelic tube of every colour in the visible spectrum. Lucario's fur began to melt into itself; his ears extending upwards far higher than should be physically possible for his species. The muscles just in the inside of his ears began to contort into horrible faces with distraught expressions, with hollow mouths and eyes that flexed with each movement the Pokémon made. The black 'mask' across his face had a mind of its own, seemingly lifting itself from Lucario's skin and melting and twisting itself to whatever shape his mind perceived it to be.

Its eyes were naturally large and blood red. When Joshua looked right into its eyes, they appeared to encapsulate more than half his entire skull, with the irises on both swirling in each direction, as if it were blood washing into the nothing of his pupils. He could see the fine colour-perceiving hairs in the irises, each seeming to wave hypnotically to him, as if trying to goad him to venturing into the pitch blackness of his massive pupils, which continued to grow the longer he stared into them.

It opened his mouth to ask something – not that Joshua could understand, with his hearing ruined. But the sight of the unnatural maw opening almost a complete 180-degrees, revealing millions of deadly sharp teeth in numerous rows, with the two long, muscular, free-minded tongues flapping ferociously between them, dancing, coaxing him into stealing a glimpse down the infinity of its throat, convinced Joshua that he was no longer resting in the arms of his Pokémon, begging him to do…something. He forgot what. The jaw moved far too quickly with each word the monster spoke, giving it a wholly unnatural look and experience, and the breath of the beast washed lightly over his face, snapping him back to the reality that he was far too close for comfort to this affront to nature.

His body felt sluggish and heavy, but with all the strength he could muster, he released himself from the thing and flung himself away. It felt like he had thrown himself a good fifty yards, and the thing shrunk from his sight accordingly. Though he wasn't any safer; three more of them came into his sight to his left. One was composed entirely of a single tree that moved and breathed and had a face just like any other creature. Its long branches twisted and meshed unnaturally, their leaves rustling violently at the slightest movement it made, the tree's expressions in all manners of directions, including inside-out. Another was obscenely tall and wide, a sinister look over where its 'face' would be, its body an opaque obsidian. Looking upon the tower, it shuddered very slightly, and two panels on either of its sides opened briskly. While, to it, it would've seemed like it only shuffled slightly and took very little extra space than normal, to Joshua, it seemed to jump violently, its sides spreading like wings of dark infinity, about to dash forward and overtake him. The third was a quadruped, its body covered in a thin dark-blue film. It had a mane that seemed to explode outward from its neck, extending metres from its body, each delicate hair swishing and dancing in the still wind. Its face was too clouded to get a good look from his distance. Its legs stood up several stories, and it had a long, whip-like tail that was longer than the monster was tall, with an oddly shaped barb situated on its very tip. Other than the mane and the tail, there were no clearly defining features on the beast, making it all the more frightening to behold, to Joshua.

He was surrounded by the creatures, and aside from the four in his vision he knew that there were others. Maybe these were the only four in the area, or maybe the rest were all hiding in the shadows, impatiently waiting for their turn.

He couldn't hear any of them. He could hear a very fine, high-pitched note in his ears – not at all painful but extremely distracting. He could tell that each of them were talking to each other: the first one that had him seconds ago had his head turned to the other three, his gargantuan jaw flapping impossibly to the others, his teeth glistening with spittle in the light of the colours surrounding them all, his tongues flapping incessantly to the others in a language with words he could hardly process, much less hear. All four of them seemed to be in some kind of hysterical argument, though the tree, ever changing, remained firmly in place. The large onyx tower seemed to be the most vocal and aggressive of all of them, and the beast – the beast tensed, and Joshua could swear he saw something emit from the creature's skin. Something bright that encapsulated its whole being, and in that single moment, he could get a clear look at the creature's face. A snarling, intense face with no eyes and flared nostrils; the skin pulled back as if it were making a face directly at him, showing its rows and rows of grey teeth. The light surrounding the monster until there was nothing but it: just Joshua and the light.

"Luxray, what the _hell!_" screamed Torterra, furious at the lion. "I said _do not_ take Master out! Are you deaf?! Are you stupid?!" Torterra wasn't known for calling his team-mates names in such a manner, but he had a little-known habit of letting his temper get the best of him when his was stressed.

The rest of the team had fallen silent from the lightning that suddenly arced through the air. Most Electric-type Pokémon that were larger than a Pachirisu had the capability to zap a human to unconsciousness, and a fully evolved Pokémon like Luxray had more than enough voltage to kill them outright. The blast was sudden and the leftover static had more than enough punch to lift the hairs on Lucario, standing a good five yards away.

Luxray relaxed his muscles, and lost his balance on his right side, collapsing immediately. He was in an awful lot of pain all of a sudden, and he quickly realized why: the pain was centred near his ribs, around the spot where he took that cheap shot from that one Graveler hours ago. It didn't hurt him normally, but when he used even a little electricity, it resulted in a lot of blinding pain in his side. He'd like to confirm that theory by sending off another spark, but…he'd rather his educated guess over his unconfirmed theory at the moment.

He was quickly joined by Flareon, with Golduck following cautiously behind – despite that they had been friends since very near the beginning, and had been with each other for years by now, Electric-types still scared the _wits_ out of her, and she was reminded of that whenever Luxray used his skill. Their assistance wasn't needed; the pain was unexpected, but Luxray managed to muscle through it and stand himself up, wincing and wobbling all the while.

"Torterra," he managed to say through gritted teeth, "sorry, but what Master says, goes." Torterra recognized the quote: he himself said it a long time ago, when they were a Luxio and Grotle, on Mount Coronet, when Joshua ordered Grotle to use Earthquake in a doubles match with Luxio as his partner. Joshua was unaware of the 'arena-wide' effect, though Luxio instinctively was. The match was a success, although Luxio was awfully bitter about it for days.

"Don't get smart with me," the turtle spat, walking up to Luxray in an attempt to seem menacing with his size, although his distinct type-advantage worked well enough. Though he would never purposely strike a team-mate, no matter how mad he got, he still had to exert his dominance over the pack whenever someone goes too far out of line. "You purposely attacked our own Master – for Arceus' sake, he's practically your own _father_, Luxray, and for all we know he's probably dead."

"He told us to!" Luxray roared in defiance. Torterra remained un-phased. "You saw him! He was on his knees, _crying_ for someone to do it! You saw his expression when he stopped; he never looked more scared of anything in his life! He was as white as snow! Whatever he was going through, knocking him out must've been an absolute _relief_, and he clearly knew that before it even happened. And you wanted him _awake_ during that? For what, so you could feel big that you managed to 'stay in control' when the guy who's obviously the most capable of that couldn't?"

Things had begun to settle slightly around them once their Master stopped his hollering, and Torterra did manage to get a clear look into his Master's eyes before Luxray shushed him. It looked like…the expression was indescribable. He looked like he was looking right at his own death. "I…" Torterra sighed. Luxray was right; doing as Joshua asked would've been the smartest, not to mention loyal, move, and he only wanted him awake for his own convoluted reasons. Though he was mad at Luxray for disobeying his order, his _own_ order was to let Lucario do exactly what Luxray did; it would've been too hypocritical to be mad. "I'm sorry, Luxray. I'm sorry, it's just…we're all hungry and tired, and we've been in this cave for five days. We haven't been outside and seen the sun in five days. With Joshua awake it would've been much easier to get out – he would've known how to do it, and where to go – and…I just wanted to get out so badly that I wanted to keep him awake so he could lead us out. And I'm sorry for that. It was a terrible thing for me to decide."

"Huh," Lucario thought loudly. "Torterra," he called, waiting for the tortoise to turn towards him before speaking further. "Are you claustrophobic?"

"Claws-tro-foe-bic?" he stuttered through the word. "I remember Master using that word once before, when we climbed to the top of Mount Coronet. What does it mean?"

"If you're claustrophobic, it means you're afraid of closed spaces. You can't stand being in a small, closed-off area for too long."

He blinked, processing the definition. "I…suppose I am, a little. Places like Gyms and Poké Centres and Poké Balls don't bother me so much since we're usually not in them for so long, but this is the second time I've gotten aggressive over it, and both times we were lost in caves for more than a day. Is it a disease? Can I fix it?"

"Yes and yes," Golduck answered for Lucario, knowing a little bit more about diseases thanks to her infrequent reading of Joshua's mind. "But not with any sort of magical pill or medicine. It's all mental: we can support you all the way, but you'll have to muscle past it yourself one of these days."

With that, Golduck went to check on her Master's body. Flareon stood close to Luxray, still worried about his health and how he suddenly collapsed with just a little shock. "Are you okay?" she asked, inspecting his side for any visible wounds. "You gave off a little electric shock, and then you practically fainted."

"I noticed," he joked. "I don't know what happened. I used a little electricity, and then it suddenly felt like I was hit in the ribs by that Graveler again. I think they're related, somehow."

Honchkrow immediately took a renewed interest in Luxray and his wound. "Really?" she asked.

"You're not going to joke that I try giving off another shock, just to test it out, are you?"

"The thought slipped my mind," she laughed. She would've enjoyed watching it, not just to quench her sadistic sense of humour but also because she was legitimately interested. "I'm just worried about later. The Golbat are going to get feisty before we make it to the entrance – unless we start sprinting _now_ – and I'm just worried about our most powerful gambit against Flying-types. If you can't fight, we'll be hard-pressed to defend against all of them at once."

"All of them at once?" Lucario interrupted. "I think you're being a little unreasonable there, Honchkrow. What makes you think they'll all attack us at once?"

"Well, one of them did try to eat Joshua two days ago. Now that he's out, again, and he can't defend himself, he'll be a big target for any blood-sucker looking for a good meal. Once one of them sees him, we'll have to take him out, and when one sees what the noise is about, they'll join in…where there's smoke, there's fire, right?"

That was a good point. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

Meanwhile, Torterra was talking with Luxray after shooing away Flareon, over him electrocuting their Master. "You didn't kill him, right?"

Luxray was a little perturbed by the question, but, remembering that Ground-types knew next to nothing about electricity other than they didn't have to care, he laughed it off. "No, of course not."

"He's not dead, Torterra," Golduck called, overhearing the question. "He's still breathing. Although I'd imagine this all forceful unconsciousness isn't at all healthy for his system."

He sighed. He didn't know how much more of this cave he could take. "How did you know how much to use on him? I don't think it takes a lot to knock a human out with electricity."

Luxray laughed at that too, though this time was more out of sheepish embarrassment. "You remember the Gym battle after Route 217? The one with all the Ice-types?"

"Of course not; Master knew I was at a huge disadvantage during that fight, and didn't let me out of my Poké Ball at all. All I know was that we lost the first time, and won the second."

"Well, uh," Luxray stuttered, trying to say the words without sounding like he did it on purpose, "we lost the first time because, um, I sorta, uh, missed one of my shots. And it just happened to hit Master." Torterra reared his head back at the news, his eyes wide with surprise. "Master was awake only a few hours later, and he seemed perfectly fine, so he told me to not worry anyone with it, which is why I never told you guys."

Torterra was sceptical, his expression disbelieving. "You hit Master with an attack that was meant for another Pokémon? We're a little hardier than the average human; I'd think a full-on Thunderbolt from you would be a little more devastating than that."

"I was frozen stiff. Towards the end, I was having difficulty getting up a static charge at all, let alone a fully-fledged, sky-destroying Thunderbolt. I knew that was the case when I took him out just now, so I held back a lot of energy. What I used would barely be enough to raise the fur on a Raichu, but, apparently, enough to knock out a grown human."

Torterra was still on the fence with that explanation, but he bought it regardless. He was nearly ready to start moving again; he just needed to ask a few more questions. "Golduck," he called, getting the duck to face him. "How are you feeling?"

Her face absolutely _beamed_ at the question. "I feel _fantastic_! Like I just got out of the Poké Centre! If I knew that that thing that Master stuck on me was going to do this, I'd have stuck it in myself when we first saw it!" She bent over, picking up the spent plastic container that had fallen off her arm only a few minutes ago, the syringe locked away permanently. It had no more liquid inside it to give. "Why do you ask?"

"That's exactly why," he replied, looking at the small capsule that Golduck held in her pads. "You're not going to keep it, are you?"

"I wanted to, yeah. Sort of a souvenir, or a reminder, I guess. I was only going to put it in the pocket with the rest of the spent Potions and stuff that Master keeps anyway. Do you mind?"

"Yeah, a little. Whatever that thing is, it gave Master such a start that he was begging to be knocked unconscious. It might be an awesome thing for us as Pokémon to have, but at the moment I'm more focused on him and his wishes. Please do not bring it." Golduck was a little disappointed, but complied nonetheless and discarded the canister to the ground. "Who wants to carry Master now?"

"I will," Lucario offered, already making his way towards Joshua. "Don't worry about my condition. I've been feeling awesome since Master gave us the medicines; I can take it from here until the end of the cave."

Torterra frowned. Lucario was eager, and he probably did feel well enough to do it, but… "I think I'd prefer it if Golduck carried him instead."

That came as a surprise for all of them, particularly Golduck. "Why me?" she asked.

"Did you not just say that you felt like you 'just got out of the Poké Centre'? I don't doubt that Lucario has the strength to do it, but out of all of us, you're probably the healthiest."

Honchkrow sputtered at that very last word. "_Healthiest_, Torterra? She was bleeding to death not two days ago. And Lucario, you were practically dead before we even _started_. I'd rather not see either of you pull the weight right now. I say Luxray should do it."

"Agreed," added Luxray immediately. "Besides, didn't I tell you that I would pick up the slack if Master worked you too hard, Torterra?"

"That was before he lost his Poffins and stabbed Golduck with…some kind of weird cure-all. But, I suppose that doesn't change much…if everyone agrees, Luxray will continue carrying Master until the end."

Everyone remained silent, except Flareon. "You just collapsed in pain, Luxray!"

"I feel better," he lied. He was feeling better, but it still hurt a lot.

"Then why are you leaning on your left legs?" To the other Pokémon, who weren't quadrupeds, they hardly noticed Luxray's lean at all, but Flareon, who had been standing on four legs all her life, could spot the difference immediately. Torterra hadn't noticed it before, since he was so mad at Luxray for knocking their Master out, but now that she mentions it, he _did_ look a little lopsided. "You look like you can barely stand, much less carry a human on your back."

Luxray wanted to be mad at Flareon for bringing it up – he was worried the others might see him as a liability, since now he was technically in the weakest shape out of all of them. But he couldn't bring himself to be mad at her. He was a big softie when it came to Flareon. "It only hurts when I use electricity. I'll just walk the pain off; it'll go away quickly."

"Not with our Master weighing you down, you won't," Honchkrow demanded. "The strongest one here is Torterra. He can keep carrying him the rest of the way."

Again, Torterra frowned. He was sort of hoping he'd get a break from carrying him for so long; humans aren't very light in the long run. Honchkrow noticed the expression on Torterra's face. "What, you don't want to do it either?" she cawed irritably. "Fine, you wimp, I'll do it. Sheesh! We're making this more difficult than it needs to be."

Flareon wanted to volunteer so badly – mostly because she honestly did want to help, and partly just because she wanted the debate to go full circle, just for fun – but, glancing at the human laying flat on the ground, she knew he couldn't carry him entirely, and she would wind up dragging most of him along the ground. They had gone over this before.

"Does anyone have any problems with _that_?" she spat, peeved that they had wasted this much time just over whom gets to carry their Master. No one had raised their voices to the crow at the challenge. "Good, glad it's settled. Lucario and Golduck, hoist him onto my back for me."


	7. Chapter 7

It had been some more hours since their Master's unfortunate mix-up. Honchkrow was still carrying him on her ruffled back. They had been travelling again at a steady pace, with Lucario in the lead. They could tell that they were getting closer to the entrance of the cave, since there were lots of holes in the ceiling, providing a clear view of the day sky. The normally blue sky had turned a bright orange, fading quickly; if they didn't find the exit soon, they'd have to stop and find some shelter from the Golbat. Last time, they had it easy with the closed corridor offering protection on all sides, but if they were caught out in the open during their frenzied feasting, it wouldn't be a fun night waiting for dawn.

They had all calmed down since Joshua had gone bonkers, except for Torterra. He was calmer, but he was still high-strung. He blamed it on his newfound knowledge of 'claustrophobia', but he hated being miserable over what should be nothing, and he was miserable when he was angry. He was leading himself in an emotional circle and it was driving him up the wall. The sooner they got themselves out of this damned cave, the better for all of them.

Everyone was exhausted from this trek. It wasn't a pleasant reunion, them and the wild – they had grown too accustomed to traveling with their Master, and when they were forced back into the hot-seat the way they had, they had forgotten how to act and survive in it. In some ways, that was a good thing; if they acted purely on impulse and survival instincts, they would've turned against each other immediately. Lucario and Flareon were having the most difficulty adjusting to the wild, since they were 'tamed' by Joshua at, or very close to birth. Honchkrow, conversely, was having a grand time, enjoying the walk through the cave. She worked well with pressure and dire situations. However, not even she could deny her hunger. They had had a single meal during the trip, and it was beginning to lose its weight with them.

The usual Pokémon of Victory Road weren't getting any more diverse or any less frequent the farther they walked, though they were beginning to get less territorial as time passed. Whatever the monster – Graveler, Machoke, Medicham, Onyx – they were simply milling about, minding their own business, no matter the location. The Machoke grouped together with the Machoke and the Medicham grouped together with the Medicham, but no single group seemed focused on a single location, and seemed more like nomads than nesting Pokémon. It was only a guess, but Golduck thought the reason for that was because they were getting so close to the entrance. New Trainers would always get at least this far into the cave, and since they had a tendency to pick fights frequently (Joshua was no different), it would've been difficult for, say, a group of Machoke to clump together against a Trainer that preferred Psychic-types. As a result, constantly staying in one place wasn't a smart tactic in this area of the cave.

Torterra kept his eyes plastered all over the ceiling as often as he could, only lowering them when he needed precision footwork or if they came to a turn in the path or something. The sky visible through the many holes in the ceiling was quickly changing from orange to an empty blue, and he didn't like the sight of it at all. The entrance was still nowhere to be seen, and very soon the Golbat would begin to wake up, and their Master was a sitting Farfetch'd in the state he was in, to say nothing of how Honchkrow is completely defenceless with him on her, and he was weak against Flying-types, and he was starving, and this cave just went _on and on_, they should've made it out by now, if something didn't happen soon he'd probably go nuts!

Finally, after twisting and turning through the half-destroyed paths in the cave, and going through so many natural archways and walking and fighting and, for a little while swimming, for nearly three days, they finally had a clue as to how close they were to the end of Victory Road. The far wall of the cave was unnaturally smooth, as if something had sanded it of its rocky outcroppings and roosts. A huge portion of the wall was missing from the cave from an unrelated incident long before Joshua arrived – not large enough to fly through, but still quite a bit larger than any hole in the sky, providing an unhindered look out of the cave and into Route 223. It was a beautiful day out, they could clearly see: the hole was a canvas that painted a picture of a cloudless evening sky, tinges of orange from the setting sun blending splendidly with the natural darkness of the night, with an inviting smooth-as-glass ocean sprawled beneath the half-starred sky, the lights of Sunyshore disrupting the natural light of the sun, adding a certain romantic, faraway feel to the painting.

The hole had a significantly different meaning to Torterra, however: it meant that the exit to the cave was just beyond this final wall. Less than five minutes of walking away! They were nearly out of Victory Road!

"Faster, faster!" he urged, finding no humour in the irony of a turtle telling others to go faster. They all picked up the pace (Honchkrow deliberately ignoring Torterra's demand and kept her pace steady, being careful not to disturb the sleeping human), rushing eagerly down the destroyed trails, effortlessly jumping or avoiding obstacles, and sliding down shallow hills to get to their destination: outside, to the Poké Centre just outside the cave's mouth, but also just anywhere but this freaking cave!

The bottommost area of the floor had the cave's entrance located closer to one of its far corners. There were no more winding roads to take; no more forks or junctions; no more cresting hills or daunting pits to climb and manoeuvre; it was flat. Any debris from falling stalactites had been cleared away by the wildlife. There was only a single obstacle remaining between the group and the end of this blasted cave: debris tends to collect in corners of buildings or other solid establishments. Because the mouth of the cave was located on a corner, it was a target for falling rocks and collecting rubble, and as a result, the mouth of the cave had been sealed by the rocks.

There was a small air pocket between the rocks and the cave's opening in the upper corner of the mouth; though it wasn't large for Flareon to squeeze through, it was a sign that this was indeed the end of the path that they had been looking for. The debris itself was a mesh of normal brown stone and sediment that made most of the cave, with the frequent 'bright stone', the type of stone that was impervious to most Pokémon attacks, gave off natural luminescent light, and was frequently used in the 'upper' levels of the cave as a maze for Trainers and Pokémon that had the Strength to push them.

They searched the walls for another exit they could take; something large enough to fit Torterra that led outside and not farther into the cave. The only other viable exit to the cave was above them, and it was still too narrow to fit Honchkrow's large form through.

Torterra looked at the obstacle, the road block that denied him his freedom from the endless cave. He considered blowing his lid and attacking the barricade with every attack he had, as ferociously as he could, if for no other reason than it'll make him feel better. Flareon noticed the expression on his face while he considered that possibility – it really looked like he was going to do it.

_Nah_, he changed his mind immediately, the muscles in his face relaxing to portray his decision. _I can handle one more puzzle._

"Let's consider our options," he said, turning to the rest of them. Honchkrow had just joined them as well, having walked her way there unenthusiastically, compared to her companions. "Golduck, you can smash some of the rocks, right?"

"The ones that aren't glowing, yeah."

"Okay, and Flareon, you can use your machine to help you move the glowing boulders, right?"

Flareon looked the barricade over. The pile was mostly just one large pile of rocks; most were easily crushed to rubble, but others had to be moved, since they were notoriously dense and invulnerable against attacks. She could move most of them by herself, but she'd have to start at the top, and the footing was extremely uneven. "Definitely," she answered, still looking the puzzle over, "but it'd take hours, and probably a lot of Ethers."

They didn't have 'hours' to spare, unfortunately. There was no point in asking either Lucario or Golduck to help; while Lucario did have the muscle for it, Flareon was far better equipped to handle the job, and if she said she couldn't, he certainly couldn't.

"Could you try using Earthquake to dislodge the whole thing, Torterra?" asked Flareon.

"Probably. But I can guarantee that the rest of you would be caught in the hit. Luxray would be hit the hardest, by far, and the resulting shock would be seen as an act of aggression to the rest of the Pokémon in the cave, so, it'd be picking a fight with everybody in the cave at once. I'm not thrilled about that option."

"Oh, then," Honchkrow called, turning everyone's attention to her, and then to Lucario as she faced him. "Can't you do it with one of those…'Aura Ball' things? You ripped a Golbat totally apart with a quick, hasty one.. A little bit of rubble can't be too big a challenge if you focus, could it?"

"Maybe not, but see the outer edges of the hole?" he asked, lifting his left paw (ignoring the flaring pain in his shoulder) to point and trace along the rim of the gap through his eyes. "There aren't any glowing bits or rocks all along the rim. That was just normal rock; but the barricade is composed mostly of those weird glowing boulders. Master had me try blowing them up before in Mount Coronet. It didn't work, naturally. That would've been too easy." The comment elicited a painfully sarcastic laugh from Luxray.

"You could try blowing more holes in the wall," offered Flareon.

"And risk another cave-in?"

"What's left to cave in?" she asked, looking up. "There's hardly any pointy rocks left on the ceiling, and all the loose rocks are off the walls…"

Torterra thought about that. The answer was obvious, but he was intrigued by her dangerous way of thinking. "I don't think that'll be any good to us," he said. "There _is_ another possibility of a cave-in. There may not be any more stalactites on the walls, but the ceiling itself could come crashing down if there were any more large disturbances. It's barely held together as it is."

There was a slight pause in the discussion, which was casually broken by the faint sound of light squeaks and flapping wings off in the distance. Flareon had a better sense of hearing than the rest of them, and could tell the direction and the distance of the noise with a little focus. "Guys," she whispered, her voice shaky and scared. "The Golbat are waking up."

They all turned their eyes upward, to watch the velvety creatures clinging to the ceiling. Sporadically, their wings unfolded and stretched hugely, before routinely dropping from their roosts and taking flight. Since most were still asleep, they weren't in a huge rush to get to feeding immediately. They typically fed on the meaty Pokémon of Victory Road – Medicham were their favourites, and were easily subdued – but anything that was edible still required a pack of at least three; Fighting-types were aptly named. The group knew they only had minutes to spare before the sky would be darkened by their opaque wings. Until then, the ones that were awake were giving off barely-audible screeches, using their sonar to scan the area for anything new.

At the same time, Joshua began to stir on Honchkrow's shoulders. He wasn't tossing and turning violently like he was when he first woke up hours ago, but he was still rousing himself awake. They all took this as a good sign: if he was awake, it'd be much easier to protect him than if he was still out cold, and Honchkrow would be able to fight as well. It was fortunate that he wasn't in as bad a condition as he was when he fell off the cliff-face.

"Get him off me," Honchkrow said quickly and sternly, slowly crouching down to rest on her knees so the others would have an easier time handling him. Like always, Golduck and Lucario stood to either side of Honchkrow and eased the human off her back, into Lucario's grip. He remembered to be extra careful with him: while he might've been in better physical condition than before, Joshua hadn't had any medical treatment since he left the Poké Centre days ago, and he was probably feeling worse since being injected with the Full Restore. Hopefully it had been processed out of his system by now.

"We need a plan," Torterra said anxiously. He wasn't looking forward to fighting the Golbat at _all_, since they had everything to lose. "Look around, guys. Is there any shelter around here at all?"

There wasn't anything to hide in nearby: the very opening of Victory Road was flat and open, followed by mounds of sediment that reached up about a story, and beyond them, paths for Trainers to take that led farther into the cave. There was no place for them to hide. "No, Torterra, it's all just open land," responded Luxray.

"And we can't get the barricade open. Not without hours of hard work, and not without drawing a lot of attention to us," Golduck added over her shoulder, helping Lucario carry Joshua to a safe corner of dirt behind the group, carrying the human by his ankles.

Honchkrow took a position next to Torterra, standing like a pillar over the vertically-challenged turtle. "We might have to fight."

"All _night_?" he asked, not the least bit surprised despite his tone of voice. He figured that unless there was nothing blocking their way out from the cave, they'd have to get aggressive back when he could first see the sky. "You and Golduck can stay awake longer than any of us, but even you two have your limits."

"We're screwed if we don't try," she replied coolly. "And it doesn't have to be all night. Just until they stop coming at us."

"Hell, we could get lucky," Luxray said, picking up on the conversation and standing on Torterra's other side. "Maybe they won't even notice us. Or maybe we won't look so tasty to Golbats."

"Don't count on that last one," Honchkrow shot slyly.

Lucario, Flareon and Golduck joined the grouping quickly, the cries of the Golbat picking up intensity, muffled behind the constant flapping of their leathery wings. The group stayed close to their Master, hoping to shield his vulnerable body from the wandering eyes of the bats. They were all tense, watching the air intensely, waiting for one of them to try and attack. The ceiling was rid of most of the bats by now; they were all waking up and getting ready to frenzy.

Luxray's hopeful gambit had been taking effect so far: they were largely unnoticed, being positioned too close to the cave's mouth, where most Pokémon of the cave tended to stay away from, since Trainers could come from there at any given time and show any Golbat brave enough to venture too close to the opening who was in charge during their stay. Not to mention not a lot of bats enjoyed the open air anyway, and preferred their nice enclosed caves.

Inevitably, a single bat noticed something peculiar from one of its sonar waves: a group of Pokémon – or maybe just one big one, it was difficult to tell exactly with sonar, especially since they were all huddled together – were standing near where the entrance of the cave used to be. They didn't look like any unappetizing Graveler or Steelix it had ever seen, nor did they look like the fleshy Machoke or Medicham or the rare Floatzel. Another curious glance with its sonar…they appeared tense, afraid of something. Afraid of them, maybe? That plays well to their advantage: Pokémon that were afraid were usually easier to topple than ones that were confident.

It flew closer for a better look. Its eyesight wasn't spectacular, but it was still close enough to tell that it was a bunch of Pokémon all huddled together, not one large one. One of them looked larger than any Golem it had ever seen; one looked taller than any Machamp. But the others – one, two, four other Pokémon it had never seen before – looked much smaller. The smallest one should be an easy target, as a matter of fact, looking only a little larger than a Geodude.

Driven by a primal instinct to feed, it swooped in closer, getting ready to attack the smallest one of the group, to make it his dinner for the night. One more cursory glance, though, just to be sure: from its new angle, it picked up on some different organism behind the group. It was larger than most of the Pokémon guarding it, but it looked injured, and asleep. Was it another Pokémon, it wondered? No, it had seen a form like that before…a human. A 'Trainer', as it remembered human beings referred to before. Humans were hilariously easy targets: usually they had no means to protect themselves, and weren't at all strong like the Fighting-types of the caves. Every human that came through that opening of the cave would've been eaten in minutes if it weren't for their 'trained' Pokémon and their technology.

The smaller Pokémon can wait; this human, sleeping out in the open, injured, was too good an opportunity to pass up. It quickly put itself into a more aerodynamic form and swung itself right at the human's form, its huge mouth wide open, its teeth dripping with numbing venom, its belly rumbling.

"Incoming!" yelled Luxray, motioning to the direction the arrow-like Golbat was flying in from. It was coming in much faster than any of them predicted a Golbat could safely fly. Nonetheless, Flareon spotted it quickly enough, and let loose a powerful Flamethrower to intercept the bat. It was bathed in the flame, and let out a painful shriek before quickly falling silent and plummeting to the ground like a stone, its body painfully dribbling across the stony ground before finally coming to a rest a few yards away from the group.

The powerful pillar of flame lit up the sky, and with the added scream of one of their own ringing through the air, the other Golbat – every single one of them – quickly turned their attention from their usual pre-frenzy milling to see what the commotion was. There, by the entrance, were a number of other Pokémon the rest of them had never seen before. One of them was in a clearly aggressive stance, its fur jagged and standing on end all across its body. The Golbat that let out the cry was nowhere to be seen.

The others weren't as analytical as the one that had just been roasted: especially when it comes to food they had never seen before, Golbat were usually cautious of their targets, but when you act aggressive towards one of their colony, you act aggressive towards the colony itself; they all began closing in around the group immediately, their minds telling them to avenge one of their own, their bellies telling them to feast.

"Perhaps a little too much, Flareon," said Golduck meekly, readying herself for the incoming battle. No one replied, and instead took to their own offensive stances. Honchkrow flew the moment she realized it was time to fight, while Torterra spread his legs for stability. While he would rather avoid conflict, his bloodthirsty side of him was elated: he was _finally_ going to be able to let off some steam, after three stressful days of this forsaken cave.

The Golbat were not immediately attacking the group, taking to circling above them before making any aggressive manoeuvres. They began chattering away at each other in their unique high-pitched voices that the others couldn't decipher; it just sounded like loud static to them. They were wary of the huge crow flapping only a few metres above the rest of them, but they still held off attacking, just for a moment longer. They wanted to make sure all of them were there before rushing the primarily land-based team: most prey in Victory Road struggled to fight off a fully-grown Golbat in a one-on-one, so if one of them could blast it out of the sky with such ease, their numbers would have to be their one-up over them.

Not a bat remained clung to the rocky roof of the cave. They had all taken to their foreboding aerial formation above the group, circling ceaselessly. All they were waiting for was for some Alpha to begin the charge, and then it'd be time to eat.

As if on cue, a single Crobat, one of the larger ones, immediately dipped from the circling formation in the sky, heading straight down to the watching land-locked group of foreign Pokémon, ready to feed. Much like the first Golbat that attacked, this one fell into a spearhead position, gaining up enough speed to charge dead into one of the watchers below. This Crobat was much more experienced, however, and dove much faster than the group could track. Before they knew what hit them, Lucario was struck dead-centre and lifted into the sky by the bat's mighty jaws.

The entire colony of bats followed suit immediately behind the Alpha, descending into a twister of velvet wings, thirsty mouths, and indecipherable screams of putrid glee and aggression. The cloud of dark-blue-furred bodies and wings dove menacingly into the group of four remaining on the ground, with a small offshoot aiming directly for Honchkrow.

Luxray was going to give off a shot of Thunder, the excruciating pain in his side be damned, when he was beaten to the punch by a tag-team shot from Golduck and Honchkrow at once. Golduck stood before the group, the ruby on her forehead glowing a powerful crimson, before she let loose a Psychic attack powerful and broad enough to surprise an Alakazam. At the same time, Honchkrow, from her position in the air, unleashed a strong Dark Pulse with a titanic flap of her wings, herding the bats from her offshoot into Golduck's own mental blast. Several Golbat fell from the sky, a number of them knocked unconscious, and an unlucky few brain-dead from the combination of the clashing forces of power. The colony itself remained unhindered, though. The counterattack merely slowed their descent, but as soon as it was over they came full speed.

The bats met their marks at last, colliding full force with their targets on the ground. The attack was countered somewhat by a Fire Blast from Flareon, scorching a good number of the opponents and felling more out of the sky, but she couldn't entirely stop the inevitable beating of wings on their bodies. Torterra managed to catch one of them in his own set of jaws, shaking the blood out of it with his own Crunch attack, while Luxray managed to clip the wings of three more, thanks to his 'hidden' machine hardening his claws to spectacular density. But soon their vision was filled with nothing except wings, flying fur, and prying incisors. Torterra briefly considered using his powerful Leaf Storm attack, but it always left him so weak after he did – better to save it for now. They weren't losing yet.

Golduck was having a difficult time by herself. One of her attacks were utterly pathetic against Flying-types, forcing her to rely more on her mind than her body. Combining her mind with her natural ability to churn water from herself, she was able to fling gobs of it off into the distance with relative ease, making a weaker impression of her Waterfall attack from yards away. She considered using Surf, but the runoff would target Flareon, as well as her Master. She couldn't tell if he was awake yet or not, but it was better to avoid any accidents.

Honchkrow was having the time of her life. She was a big bird, and she threw that weight around during battles; she enjoyed it particularly when her partner would fall in a Doubles fight, leaving her to pick up the slack in a two-on-one. Since the very beginning of Victory Road, she would often pick fights with more than one Golbat at once, or maybe fight a Machoke and a Medicham at once, or whatever combination the cave had to give her. She wasn't the most elegant bird to ever grace the skies, but her job was meant to be done quickly, effectively and, if she wanted to indulge, brutally; not to look pretty while she did it. In all the action, she couldn't focus long enough for another Dark Pulse like the one when the cloud descended upon her team, but throwing out small, local Pulses whenever she felt like was as natural as blinking. A pulse of darkness here, a swat of the wing there, some claw- and beak-gouging thrown in for good measure, and she found herself right at home knocking Golbat out of the sky with little trouble.

Torterra was having as much difficulty as Golduck – even more than that, since he was weak defensively against the aerial invaders, not just offensively. Still, the giant turtle managed to hold his ground against the hundreds of huge bats: while one of his attacks was too risky to use right now, and another was entirely useless against flyers, he still had two more that he could use to his advantage. His jaw was absurdly powerful, and while getting a good grip on a Golbat was difficult, one Crunch was all it took to convince his victim to stop fighting. While Giga Drain would be worthless against the flying, poisonous bats, Torterra was creative enough to try and trap a few Golbat in his thick leaves, sapping their energy to replenish his own. That's not to say that there weren't…other ways of fighting a Pokémon, outside of specialized attacks: Torterra's bulk alone was a weapon: any bat unlucky enough to get stomped on by the 700-pound turtle wouldn't fly again, and if he couldn't bite anything in front of him, he could ram it with all his might, which, with his impressive weight, was enough to rattle the bones of any Pokémon, flying or not.

Luxray hated the position he was in. He could fry every last bat in the sky with barely a thought and a spark in his fur, but not without practically doing himself in at the same time. He could probably get off a shot of Thunder – with this many targets all at once, he was guaranteed a few successful kills, even if the attack wasn't reliably accurate – but he couldn't hold the charge without collapsing from the searing, unbearable pain. If things looked bad, he'd gladly take the pain if it meant getting his friends and his Master out of a jam, but until then, he'd be worth more to the team awake and able than writhing pathetically on the ground. All this aside, he wasn't about to simply sit out of the fight, by any stretch of the imagination: his jaws still worked perfectly fine, and since his Thunder Fang didn't require a charge that shot through his whole body constantly to work, he put his electrified molars to good use. And all the while, his unnaturally sharp claws saw plenty of action throughout the free-for-all, tearing apart wing after leathery wing with every swipe.

Flareon was scared out of her wits – she was used to Doubles fights, but this was _ridiculous_. Her dainty claws and petite jaw were no good against the large Golbat that surrounded her on all sides, but unlike the others, her natural element at least stood a chance against them. She kept her body temperature unusually high for self-protection, which seemed to work: any Golbat that managed to get its claws or teeth on her would let go moments after it did, crying in pain and flailing its grotesquely large tongue in the air after suffering a surprising burn on the inside of their mouths. Her Flamethrower could reach several stories into the air, roasting any bat it engulfed to a light golden-brown, silencing their wings and their voices permanently. That was another thing she was unused to: outright _killing_ other Pokémon. She was more used to holding back her strength, intent on only winning her bouts by knockout, but she knew that this was a different game. It was too risky to use any of her Fire-based attacks on any bat that managed to get in close to her, since there was a possibility of catching her friends in the fire. But that was okay: with her 'hidden' machine, her shoulder-charges packed much more power than even Torterra's rushes; more than once she heard the unfortunate cracking and snapping of bones in her targets when she got physical.

It took a bit of effort on his part, but Lucario managed to fight himself free from the deadly grasp of the Crobat. They were exceptionally rare in the wild, being fully evolved from Zubat, and were a menace to face, usually even with a type advantage. Their jaws weren't nearly as large as their de-evolved forms, but were still large, and most definitely strong, enough to get a piercing grip on Lucario's tough outer skin. Their wings were also smaller than a Golbat's, but they had an extra set of wings to make up for the size, resulting in less weight and tremendously more lift. He was brought nearly to the very roof of the cave before he managed to wrestle one of his arms free and unload a quick Aura Sphere right into the eyes of his captor, which let out a screeching, painful bellow and dropped the jackal directly into the colony of swarming bats. The fall wouldn't kill him – he'd been dropped from higher locations before, voluntarily – but it'd still hurt more than he'd care to experience. Once he entered the swarm of flying vermin, he managed to land square on the back of an unsuspecting Golbat, feet first. Golbat, on average, only weighed a few pounds more than the average Lucario did, and when the heavy Lucario crashed into the unprepared bat's back full force, its spine was immediately snapped in two, sending it to the ground lifelessly. The break in the fall gave the dexterous Lucario enough time to leap from that one Golbat onto the back of another; even with the type disadvantage, the weight of the Lucario on the wings of a fragile Golbat, along with a single muscular kick, was enough to end the attack, and any future attack, of any bat he happened to land on. The break in the fall would give him enough time to leap to yet another bat, ending it much the same way. Effectively, he was able to fight in the air alongside Honchkrow this way.

Despite the team's strong start against the bats, the fight wasn't going well for them. They outmatched the bats in terms of raw power, but their sheer numbers were slowly outclassing them. The bats weren't stupid, either: when attacking directly proved ineffective, they began relying on indirect methods of attack. None of them were too knowledgeable on type advantages, but when one got the idea to see what would happen if it used Air Cutter against Torterra and found the results…_favourable_, the colony's communication of chatters and yelps quickly caused more Air Cutters to be flung every which way, resulting in numerous friendly casualties but the pros were ultimately outweighing the cons. Confuse Rays were also attempted, but in the chaos of the huge battle, they were fairly useless, not to mention inaccurate: everyone was confused and panicked already.

The four on the ground huddled close, forming a protective meat-shield around their Trainer, who was still wresting himself out of his sleep. It wouldn't be long until he was awake. The Golbat were getting increasingly frantic over the sight of the helpless flesh waiting for them just a few wing-flaps away, and the sight and the smell of blood being drawn from the defenders, and their own kind, was making them more aggressive with every drop spilt. The casualties for the Golbat continued to climb with every strike one of them landed, but there were still far too many for them to handle all at once.

"I have an idea!" shouted Flareon over the beating wings and shrieks of the Golbat. Her voice didn't carry well over the noise of the psychic blasts, skin tearing, bloodletting and bones crunching, and as a result no one heard her cry. Doing away with another two Golbat, she got up as close as she could to Golduck before trying again. "Golduck, I have an idea!"

Golduck couldn't spare the time to face her team-mate, having her hands full with her own bats to fight. After willing the wings to stop flapping on one and blasting another out of the sky with a high-pressure shot of water, she managed a guttural reply. "That's good, we could use one!"

"I'm going to use Smog, as much as I can, into the sky. Poison those bats before they have a chance to attack!"

It was a good plan, with only one flaw. "You'll get Honchkrow and Lucario in the gas!"

"Lucario?" she replied, bewildered. What was Lucario doing in the sky with the Golbat? Tackling another Golbat out of the way and Fire Blasting another group of five, she turned her eyes upward, looking for Lucario, to see if what Golduck was saying was true. She found Honchkrow easily enough – it was difficult to miss the massive bundle of dark, lean feathers beating down every Golbat that got close enough with a type of extreme aggression only known to Dark-types – but Lucario was harder to spot, being smaller than most of the bats and his fur blended with the coarse blue hair on them. Finally, she spotted something jumping oddly from one Golbat in the sky to another, and each one it landed on plummeted from the sky almost as soon as it did. Lucario was the only Pokémon she knew that had that kind of agility and dexterity. "That's awesome!"

"What?"

"Can't you talk to them telepathically or something? Tell them to get out of the sky so I can use my attack?"

"It doesn't work that way! Only psychics can talk to other psychics telepathically," she paused, painfully drenching another Golbat with yet another Waterfall attack. She was getting tired from only using two attacks. "Otherwise it'll…" She couldn't find the words to describe it correctly, not with her mind so preoccupied. "It'll just feel weird, okay?"

Flareon didn't understand why precisely, but she bought the explanation all the same – there wasn't any time to argue semantics at the moment.

"If Joshua wakes up in time, he can use some Antidotes to undo any damage you might do to them," Golduck continued, "but until then you should focus more on beating up some more bats!"

Antidotes? Then, she could still go through with her attack! All she needed was to protect her Master long enough for him to wake up, and all he would need then was to reach into his pack and –

_His pack!_ It was still on Torterra's 'tree'! Was it still okay? Since he'd been getting beaten up with a lot of Air Cutters recently, there was a very real chance that Joshua's backpack had been torn to shreds.

She ran to Torterra's side. He was still fighting just as strongly as when he had started, but he was looking really beat up. All sorts of marks and cuts all over his body, particularly his face, and it appeared as though the 'tree' on his back was missing a few limbs. If he felt any pain from it, he certainly wasn't showing it. His Crunch's and Giga Drain's were still as frequent and still as effective. She figured that the Grass-type attack was giving him all the strength he needed to continue fighting; if it weren't for that, he probably would've collapsed from the pain a while ago. Or maybe not, and he's just tough as nails – a Pokémon would have to be, to walk down a waterfall the way he did.

Despite the obvious damage all over his body, the bag was still clinging securely to the 'tree'. The extra limbs and leaves provided an adequate shield against many of the attacks from the flyers. However, it was damaged: the main compartment of the bag had been sliced clean open, although it appeared that all that was lost were the spare 'machines' that he insisted on keeping but never using. Another good strike would tear the bag completely apart, spilling all of its contents around the ground.

There was no real point in telling him to 'be careful' of the bag. He was just as busy as the rest of them with fighting wave after wave of the bats. The most she could do is continue fighting them all off and waiting for her Master to wake up.

She whirled around, to get back to her position and ease the weight on Golduck by fighting her fair share of bats once more, when she noticed her Master was sitting up. He appeared disoriented and tired – despite the noise, he had no idea where he was or what was going on, as if he had only just woke up. His movements were very slow and deliberate, and his skin had a very pale tinge to it. He rested his head in his good hand for now, shaking his head idly, trying to regain his senses.

"Master! Master!" Flareon barked, rushing to his side to get his attention. Her cries of his title got the attention of the others; briefly, they all turned around to see what Flareon was going on about, and noticed that the human was sitting up under his own power. Torterra breathed a sigh of relief; Luxray flashed a victorious grin; and Golduck was just surprised.

"Great timing," she muttered, before returning to wildly beating the hungry bats.

The effects from the Full Restore Joshua had absorbed a few hours earlier had waned from his system, along with most of his influenza, spectacularly; although now he _really_ needed to use the washroom. Blinking the dust out of his eyes, trying to ignore the incredible pain still signalling through his body, he attempted to focus. He remembered every horrible detail of being under the Full Restore's effect, but was thankful to know that he could hear again and, likewise, wouldn't be seeing any more impossibly horrific monsters.

The first thing he saw when he finally forced his eyes open was Flareon, barking incessantly at him for his attention. The second thing he saw were the hundreds and thousands of bats all circling around them, attacking constantly with all manner of attacks, and three of his six Pokémon fighting their damndest to keep them all at bay.

"Wha…?" he asked dumbly. He couldn't see Lucario or Honchkrow anywhere. He only hoped that they hadn't been lost to them.

"Master!" she barked again, ripping his attention from them back to her. "Lucario and Honchkrow are fighting in the air! Long story! I'm going to use Smog to drown the bats out of the sky; you get some Antidotes out of your backpack and get ready to use them on them!" She spoke quickly and garbled most of her words in her excited panic. Joshua, naturally, didn't understand a word, and was bewildered when she ran off to an open, yet secluded part of the safe zone to prepare her gambit.

He didn't understand what was going on precisely; just that they were under attack, and they were fighting against lots of Golbat all at once. Golduck was fighting off most of them with her mind, using her arms and powerful water-jets to fend off anything that got too close. Torterra was having a difficult time all around, but he was literally tearing the opposition apart with every attack of his that landed. And Luxray…Luxray wasn't using his electrical attacks.

"Luxray!" he shouted as best he could. His throat was as smooth as sand-paper, and what wasn't bone-dry and coated with dust and dirt was soaked through with phlegm. He cleared his throat as best he could, regretful of the pain but pressing on anyway. "Luxray!" he shouted again, this time managing to get the lion's attention, if only briefly as it went back to biting and clawing at the Golbat surrounding him. "Luxray!" he called a third time, knowing that the Pokémon could hear him. "Thunder, Luxray, use Thunder!"

Another brief glance – it lasted a bit longer this time, and Joshua could clearly make out a downtrodden, apologetic expression on Luxray's face, before it went back to manually ripping the bats apart, ignoring his Master's order. It wasn't like Luxray to ignore an attack; it wasn't the first time, but the event occurred only once in a blue moon. Joshua was going to order him again to use Thunder, but he reconsidered: if this experience had taught him anything so far, it's that he could reliably trust his Pokémon with his life, and if one of them disobeyed, they had a good reason to.

Flareon looked up towards the camp of bats swarming the entire sky above her. There were no holes in the ceiling – there was no ceiling at all – just bats. Hungry, flapping, loud, ugly bats, that put them in a terrible, life-threatening situation. Poisoning all of them was going to feel good.

"Golduck!" she called, getting her attention again. "Protect me! I'm going to smoke them out!" Golduck nodded her approval and backed up slightly, getting closer to Flareon as she readied the biggest Smog cloud she could muster.

It wasn't difficult to do: combine some fire that she could naturally mix in a pocket of her belly along with some bodily gases and fluids. It was like belching on command, but this burp had decidedly lethal qualities to it. The more ingredients she mixed, the fuller she felt, and by the time she thought she was halfway ready, she felt like she had eaten twice her fair share of Poffins. It didn't show outwardly, but the more Smog she made before releasing, the more she felt like she was going to pop like a balloon. _Just a little bit more_, she thought. Her breathing became laboured – she didn't have enough room inside her to fill her lungs all the way. Every outward breathe held an undesirable stench, and unconsciously, she began leaking some of it out of her nose with every exhalation. She thought that she was charging even more than should've been physically possible for her small body, but then her stomach growled – since her stomach was empty, it was yielding more room in her innards than if she had eaten dinner. Every time she used Smog before this, she had used less than a third of the amount of gas she was preparing now; but this time, her opponent was decidedly 'larger' than her usual fare.

She got to the point where she couldn't take in an ounce more oxygen into her lungs, with her Smog taking up so much space in her insides. Her eyes watering profusely, she finally opened her maw wide, pointing it to the sky, and let loose an enormous cloud of gaseous Smog into the beasts above them. She had no idea where Lucario or Honchkrow were; she just hoped they'd see the huge billowing cloud of poison and get out of the sky before it had the chance to claim either of them.

Many of the bats stopped what they were doing when they smelled the noxious fumes of the cloud erupting from such a small Pokémon. They were all part Poison – they knew what a Poison-type attack smelled like. Despite their natural affinity for the element, they could still succumb to it, and their first instinct was to silence the pup from throwing any more of the smoke into the air. Many ceased their attacks on their targets, turning their attention to Flareon, and began their assault on the dog immediately.

Flareon still hadn't exhaled all the gases she had built up, leaving her as defenceless as a newborn. Golduck was protecting her as best as she could, but she quickly found herself outmatched by the renewed attacks by almost every Golbat that had seen the cloud. With one strong Psychic, she managed to push the wall of wings away from them for only a moment, but beyond that, she'd need help.

Luxray leapt to Flareon's side quickly, seeing the impressive wall of smoke come from such a small body, and assisted fending off the waves and waves of reinvigorated bats. The taste of bat flesh and blood had saturated his mouth; for someone who suggested cannibalism less than a day ago, he found the taste undeniably unattractive. Torterra joined in protecting Flareon shortly after, hobbling his way over as quickly as his stout legs could lift him. His mouth was no different from Luxray's, and he didn't enjoy the taste any more than his friend did. Both of their front hooves were also coated in thick blood.

The effort was taking a toll on her body, but she finally managed to get the entire cloud of Smog out of her before she fainted from the effort. A few deep, hurried breaths, and she was back to fighting condition, though using Smog, without fail, always left a bad taste in her mouth. As bad as blood tasted, it was definitely _preferred_ to the tongue-gouging sensation that Smog would always leave in her mouth. She was ready to Flamethrower as many bats as she could, to incinerate the horrible taste before it imprinted itself on her tongue.

The cloud of Smog was doing its work well enough: bats were suddenly finding it difficult to stay aloft, flapping furiously to keep their bodies lifted when it should've taken only minimal effort for a healthy Golbat. The cloud was translucent; they couldn't see too far into it, but what they could see was a jarring sight: dozens of Golbat, fighting desperately to combat the poison; their tongues hanging loosely from their open mouths; spittle flying in some convoluted, desperate manner to overcome. A few got the good idea to fly under the cloud, but others were poisoned horribly by the cloud; some fell dead from the sky because of it. The assault on the four grounded Pokémon had lightened considerably while the others panicked to find fresh air.

A bipedal Pokémon hit the ground from the sky with a thud. Lucario had found it too difficult to continue fighting alongside Honchkrow: while there was no shortage of 'platforms' to use, they were becoming increasingly unpredictable in the poisoned air. Not to mention he would be poisoned in a matter of seconds if he stayed up there as well. He was coughing roughly, his right paw covering his muzzle, attempting to filter the bad air from getting into his lungs. He didn't waste any time – being in the open labelled him as a target to any bats that still had their senses about them, and he wasn't very strong against them without his makeshift advantage. He quickly retreated to the other four defending Pokémon, and from there he ran to tend to his Master, who was having difficulty getting onto his feet.

"Where's Honchkrow?" Joshua asked only as loud as he needed, getting a good look at Lucario at the same time. Compared to Torterra's overall health, Lucario wasn't very beaten up, but that wasn't saying much: he had a number of cuts all across his face and body, and his right eye was swollen shut. He had been taking as much care of his left shoulder as he could, but his legs looked particularly damaged from all the jumping he was doing. Both his knees looked irritated but not yet swollen, but his ankles were beginning to bleed slightly from the strain. He looked like he wanted to stop and take a rest, but he knew they couldn't afford any weak links, especially not now.

Removing his paw from his face, he sadly pointed up to the sky, right into the cloud of gas, to answer his Master's question. Joshua sighed disdainfully; there was no way Honchkrow would allow herself to succumb to such an obvious attack, but it was unlike Dark-types to retreat from any battle; he only hoped she would have the sense to escape quickly.

With a whoosh, Honchkrow's huge, beating wings came flying out of the cloud, aiming directly into the ground, going at a tremendous speed. Like Lucario before her, she was hacking and coughing up a storm, reflexively trying to oust the poison. Unlike Lucario, who only suffered some minor internal damage from the burning Smog, Honchkrow was definitely infected. Her flight was like the Golbat's: tired, panicked, and putting in an awful lot of effort for what should've been a simple task. She was normally smooth with her landings, but this one came in with a crunch; she flipped head over talon several times, rolling across the rocky ground painfully, trying to come to a stop but failing at every attempt. Finally, the inertia from her flight exhausted itself, and she came to a rest on her back.

She was disoriented, but otherwise fine – after fighting so many fights and flights, she could take a botched landing. It wasn't like that was the first that ever happened. But birds weren't known for resting on their backs, especially ones of her size, and she was having difficulty getting herself to her feet. She was quickly introduced to a number of more Golbat, both physically fine and poisoned alike, and she had no way to defend herself. Their bites and claws dug through her feathers easily, and the air was filled with several pained caws from the crow.

"Go help her, Lucario!" Joshua shouted. Not that he needed to; he was off like a shot halfway through his Master's sentence. There were four bats attacking her on all sides: a large Aura Sphere managed to knock one into the other before sending them both flailing off into the distance. Lucario quickly got a grip on the third bat's body and threw it with as much force as he could into the fourth.

"Are you okay? Can you stand?" he asked her, already reaching a paw behind her back in case she couldn't.

Honchkrow was having difficulty replying to Lucario's questions: she was having problems breathing, much less being able to stand by herself. "Po-" she coughed out, wrestling herself to her feet with Lucario's help. "Poi-Poisoned," she finally managed to spit.

"You're poisoned?" he asked – unsurprising, since the Smog is very potent, and she was in it much longer than he was. She nodded in reply as she finally managed to push herself onto her feet. Other than the expression on her face, the poison didn't affect her outward appearance immediately; she looked just fine. Unrelated to the poison, however, she was bleeding from numerous cuts on her wings and back, and she appeared to be losing quite a few feathers all over her body. The fight must've been taxing for her, although she actually looked better than he did.

"Let's get you behind the others," he said comfortingly though insistently, gently pushing Honchkrow towards the safe area provided by the four other defending Pokémon, where Joshua was already waiting. "Master has some medicine in his bag; he'll get some out and fix you right up."

The Smog was working wonders against the aerial opponents. Bats were either withdrawing to a distant area of the cave, or taking their chances in the pollution, which usually didn't work. The attack was lightening considerably the longer the cloud stayed in the air. While their numbers were diminishing quickly, there were still more bats active in the sky than could be counted; still, as long as the Smog lingered, it looked as if the fight was going to end in their favour.

Honchkrow and Lucario arrived in the safe area as quickly as she could walk, all the while she was wheezing and coughing, trying to get the poison out of her system. Joshua was paying attention to the whole ordeal: if he had any idea Flareon has the ability to make a Smog cloud like this, he would've…well, it would've made some of those Doubles fights quite a bit easier. It would be useful to know, in the future.

He knew what was wrong with Honchkrow when he first saw her standing only a few paces from him. Throughout his entire journey, his Pokémon had gotten poisoned more than once from enemy attack, and he was well versed in its symptoms. "Torterra!" he yelled, getting the Pokémon's attention away from the still-attacking bats. "Come here!" He knew it probably would've been faster if he went to him instead, but he was still a wreck himself; his entire left side still wasn't working properly. "Lucario, Honchkrow and I are safe here. You go help the others fight off the Golbat." The jackal was a little apprehensive – to say nothing of his Master, he was also best friends with Honchkrow, and wasn't fond of the idea of leaving both them defenceless against any surprise attack. He obeyed the command eventually, and left to shoot some more Aura Spheres into the flyers.

Torterra waded dutifully towards his Master, obeying the human's command, though anxious about leaving his friends to fight the fight without him. "I need to get to my backpack," he said simply, walking towards Torterra and carefully climbing onto his shell. Torterra hadn't had a good look at Honchkrow until now, and the sight of her dulled red eyes and unusually shallow face told him that something was very wrong with her, although the rest of her body looked okay; just as roughed up as the rest of them from the fight, but still capable.

"Did you get caught in Smog?" he asked, afraid for her health. She thought that it should be obvious, but didn't have the energy to be sarcastic or demeaning, and instead simply nodded again. The edges of the 'fedora' on her head were beginning to droop the longer the poison sapped her energy.

His backpack was pretty destroyed – no doubt he'd have to buy a new one if he survived this madness. The 'machines' he had been keeping for no particular reason had all been lost much earlier in the fight when the bag was sliced open by an errant Air Cutter and managed to cut their pocket open. But the Antidotes he had, along with the other Potions and medicinal Pokémon items, were miraculously undamaged.

Before he could even begin searching, a strange chill wind wrung through the cave. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees instantly (which was rather pleasant: the Smog, Flareon's usual attacks, and the combat in general had risen the heat well above room temperature only minutes ago), and the air suddenly had an icy-blue tinge to it, as if the room was fogging up. The fog wasn't too thick, but it still coated everything, giving it all a slight blue film to it. It was a neat effect, especially when compared to the naturally-glowing boulders that dotted the walls and floors of the cave: the light emanating from them reached into the air, brightening the fog around them, giving them a neat blur.

The Golbat suddenly stopped their attacks – every single one suddenly pulled away at once, giving the defenders quite a berth once they realized what was going on. They willingly retreated back into the Smog, wanting nothing more to do with the fight.

"Did we just win?" asked Flareon, confused.

"No, look," Luxray answered, pointing his face into the Smog. "They're not retreating…if they were, they'd have gotten out of the Smog. They're…" he squinted, trying to see past both the fogs to see what plan the bats had, if any. "It looks like they're just flying in there, as if the Smog wasn't even there. What's happening?"  
Joshua was about to pay it absolutely no mind. It was getting close to winter, after all; maybe a cold front had suddenly found its way into the cave through one of the many holes in the walls. He reached into his bag and sifted his hand around, feeling for one of the Antidotes he knew he had in there. Antidotes were completely indistinguishable from other medicines, such as Awakening and Burn Heal, aside from their colours: Antidotes were yellow; Ice Heals had a mild pinkish hue, and so on. Although he had more Antidotes than most other medicines, he withdrew the wrong medicine twice before finally getting his hands around the glass case of the correct one. "Got it," he said, pulling the bottle out. Medicines like Antidotes were actually ointments, which, while slightly slow-acting for poisons, made a lot of sense for paralysis and burns. They were only as viscous as water, making applying the ointments a little difficult, but they were highly effective nonetheless.

Cautiously, he approached Honchkrow, readying himself to give her the Antidote. But when he got within her wingspan, she uncharacteristically pushed him away – gently, but the message that she didn't want the medicine was clear. "Honchkrow?" he asked, confused. She had been poisoned many, many times before, and after the first time she tried to walk it off, he'd have thought she had realized that it wasn't something she could get through herself. "You know you need it…"

She looked at him, the weariness gone from her face, the edges of her 'fedora' straightening appropriately. She felt fine: she wasn't limping or crouched over; she wasn't coughing up a storm…she felt a dizzy from the sudden recoil between deathly sick and perfect health, but she was otherwise back to fighting condition. Her expression told Joshua as much.

"What's with the Smog?" asked Torterra. Honchkrow had turned away from her Master and looked up at the gaseous cloud. It had thinned out considerably all of a sudden, and the bats within the cloud were beginning to look healthier and healthier as time passed. They continued to flutter in a tight cluster high above the group, as if they were trying to hide or protect something.

"What a second," Joshua said loudly to himself. He remembered all of this from someplace before. The chill wind, the fog, the sicknesses in the Pokémon's bodies suddenly disappearing – this was like the Gym Leader battle at Snowpoint City. Haze, the 'attack' was called: its icy winds had an oddly regenerative quality to them that healed any abnormalities in the Pokémon's nervous system, though the move was indifferent to friend and foe and healed all equally. He remembered it all now; that technique nearly lost him the badge. But what Pokémon in Victory Road knew Haze?

He paid closer attention to the cloud of bats that hung in the slowly dissipating Smog. Way, way in the back was a single Crobat that seemed to be flying as still as it could, deep in concentration. The Smog seemed to be the least dense around that one bat, while the cold fog was at its thickest. The Golbat could learn Haze? Naturally? It seemed like a cruel joke, but it made a lick of sense – as Poison-types, it would've been good to know a cure to their own poisons, and Haze fit the bill perfectly.

"Guys!" he shouted in a panic. Smog was their best gambit; it would've been very bad if it was simply blown away with the wind. "Attack! The bats are blowing away the Smog! Attack!"

They all understood the word 'attack' well enough. They began their assault on the Golbat, trying to figure out which one they were supposed to be specifically aiming for. Remarkably, many of the bats seemed to willingly jump into their attacks, protecting one of their Alphas deep in the core of the massive cloud.

The Smog had thinned considerably, but was still a threat to the bats' health. Coupled with them jumping willingly into some powerful Pokémon attacks in an attempt to protect their leader, and the corpses of bats lining the floor like a carpet already, and the camp of Golbat was _finally_ seeing some noticeable detriments to their numbers. Joshua had wondered how so many bats could possibly survive in a cave like Victory Road, especially when they needed to eat organics to survive, and there were very little of those anywhere throughout the cave. With so many deaths, would he be causing any damage to the ecosystem of the cave? An interesting though, but he had other things to focus on at the moment.

Psychics, Flamethrowers and Aura Spheres were lobbed insistently into the Smog, trying to dig their way to the back of the crowd to stop whatever it was that was making this fog. But even with their dwindling numbers, they still found enough meat shields to take each shot full on; any bat that miraculously wasn't done in by the offensive was eventually taken care of by what was left of the Smog. Honchkrow quickly joined in the fighting – while she preferred attacking physically, she learned her lesson from the Smog only moments ago, and took to shooting powerful Dark Pulses into the air, scoring some more kills. Luxray wanted desperately to join in the attack, but held onto his electricity for now, and Torterra only had one attack he could use, but he withheld as well: he had some type of block keeping him from doing it, saying that he was going to need it for later. Leaf Storm always made him feel exhausted after doing it, after all.

Even with Flareon desperately switching to Fire Blasts to dig through the wall of flesh before the gas completely dissipated, it was no use: the fog completely overtook the gas in the air and chilled the room in general. The Haze had diffused throughout the air, combating the Smog the whole way, until there was no more Smog to threaten anyone's health anymore. The bats no longer took to leaping into the attacks of their enemies and scattered at the first sign of an incoming attack. Their overall offensive had decreased dramatically, but nonetheless, the battle resumed from where it left off. "It was a good idea, Flareon," Golduck told her, watching the bats swoop in for another chance at their flesh. "You couldn't have known."

Flareon wasn't too disappointed in the outcome of the Smog, however. She never expected it to outright win them the war; just put a big enough dent into the Golbat's numbers so that they could pick off the remaining few physically. As far as she was concerned, Smog was a shining success, if a little short-lived.


	8. Chapter 8

Joshua had hidden himself underneath a very shallow outcropping of rock – he was still plainly visible; the only thing it protected him from was anything that tried to attack him from directly above. Any shelter was better than no shelter, however, and he knew he'd be a burden if he stood anywhere else.

He was having a difficult time watching the massacre unravel in front of him. Honchkrow had gone back into the air to fight the bats personally, and his others were ripping the bats apart, sometimes literally, to protect him from them and to survive the night. He didn't need reminding of how important he was to them, since they had bothered to go through the trouble of bringing him all the way here in the first place. It touched him deeply, knowing that his Pokémon – his family, in the spirit of the word – had and were putting their lives on the line for him. He knew he had done a damn fine job as a Trainer…but at the same time, he was conflicted about the scene. He was essentially powerless, especially in the physical state he was in now, so he shouldn't have felt bad about not being able to help his Pokémon in such a high-stakes battle, but he still felt the compulsory need to direct his Pokémon, to tell them what to do and where to direct it. But he was only experienced at handling Singles and Doubles battles and directing them in that fashion – this was entirely out of his league, and he was surprised that they weren't suffering any friendly casualties for the same reason. He probably would've never thought of such a powerful Smog attack on his own.

Among the fluttering wings and excited yelps of the Golbat, Luxray, spitting out some hair and blood from his last kill, managed to get in close enough to ask Torterra a question. "Do you think we have a chance?"

"Chance at what?" he replied, ramming one more Golbat into another.

"At winning."

Torterra was surprised Luxray had to ask. "How long have we been fighting? An hour? Half an hour? And the Golbat are starting to thin out while we're…well, we're pretty beat up, but our kill count is a lot higher than theirs." They separated briefly to attack some more Golbat that had flown too close to their personal space, dispatching them quickly. "Yeah, we got a fighting chance at winning this. So long as there aren't any more surprises."

"Like what?" Luxray asked, his curiosity, while sincere, morbid. He could only imagine a hidden platoon of bats hiding in some dark corner deep inside the cave, waiting only until their allies had begun to lose until they would swoop in and double their numbers all over again.

Instead of more Golbat joining the fight, a single Graveler came rolling down the hills surrounding the open terrace of the mouth's entrance. It immediately joined in the battle once the footing was adequate: with a single titanic swing of both sets of arms, it managed to catch two frantic Golbat in each set, and then it clapped them together as if they were some kind of instrument. One collision, and both bats were broken instantly.

Another Graveler came rolling down from the hills, and another, and another, until the hills were cloaked with somersaulting sentient boulders, each getting a piece of the action of taking out the Golbat. Their dual-types made them adequate choices to use against the flyers: and their own Rock-type attacks, while horribly inaccurate against the agile Golbat and Crobat, would still bring down a bat instantly with any one hit.

Joshua's team of Pokémon was dumbstruck at the sight – so much so that, except for the busy Honchkrow, they all stopped a moment to marvel at the sight of the wild, completely unaffiliated Pokémon adding their assistance to rest the flying menaces. "Something like that," Torterra said, no less surprised by the sudden act than the rest of the team or Joshua himself. It was amazing to watch; the Graveler, while certainly outnumbered by the Golbat, still dotted the cave of Victory Road as often as those glowing boulders did, and suddenly almost all of them were here to join in the fighting against the bats. Among them were even the occasional Golem: only two arms compared to its four-armed un-evolved brother, but their experienced, diamond-like shells proved entirely impervious to even the most seasoned of Crobat's offensives, and were an entire army by themselves.

Joshua didn't know what to think of the sudden miracle; surely they weren't simply doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but there was apparently an enticing reason to suddenly see the Golbat all dead by the end of the night. If it were the Machoke and Medicham that wanted the bats dead, since the Golbat were their only natural predators in the cave, that was one thing, but the Graveler and Golbat had a neutral alliance with one-another – it made no sense for them to suddenly turn around and start doing them all in, and even less sense that they were only targeting the Golbat when Joshua's own team probably wouldn't stand much of a chance against the sudden influx of new opponents. He was deeply concerned for Honchkrow's health: one hit from those rocks, and she'd be a goner.

As if on cue, all the Machoke and all of the Medicham began to drip, then trickle, then run and flood into the war zone shortly after the last Graveler had come down. The combination of pure muscle with impressive psychic affinities joined in the slaughter, and suddenly the bats were completely, totally, helplessly outnumbered by the forces fighting against them. If every Machoke and Machamp got into a fight with every Golbat and Crobat, the Golbat would eventually win, though not without problems since it required at least three Golbat to take down one Machoke. But with every Medicham and Graveler in on the fight as well, they recognized that this was a losing battle – except for a stubborn, hungry, or just plain bloodthirsty few, the rest evacuated the one-sided fight and made for safe ground high above the others on the ceiling.

It was a spectacular sight to see. Just like that, all the quarrelling for their survival was over. They had taken a lot of hits, but overall they were in good condition, considering. And they owed their victory, and perhaps their lives, to all the nomadic Pokémon of Victory Road. No more blood, no more wings, no more rips and tears and guts spilling all over the ground. The battle only lasted an hour or so, but even then it was much longer than any other fight any of them had been in (Honchkrow having the longest record at fifteen minutes). It was a nightmare, and it was done. Victory Road was silent, barring the occasional wing-flaps from Honchkrow and the stubborn remaining Crobat and Golbat.

They were all confused by the generous actions of the wild Pokémon that had come to their rescue. But nonetheless, Lucario saw it appropriate to thank the others for their assistance; it was the very least he could offer in exchange. Physically beaten, he walked up to the nearest Machoke and extended a paw, the Aura around his wrists dimmed as if to signify that he had come peaceably. "Thanks a lot for the help," he said. He wasn't too fond of Fighting-types, ignoring the fact that he's half of one, but he thought that they wouldn't go through the trouble if they had any ill-intentions towards the group, right? He was confident that they wouldn't attack.

The Machoke looked to the small blue jackal, a look of mild surprise on his chiselled face from the extended paw, and from his current physical condition. "You're with the human, right?" he asked seriously, refusing to shake the other Pokémon's paw. Honchkrow had landed; the cave was entirely silent save the bats still softly flapping their wings in nervous anticipation, and the two Fighting-types talking.

Lucario turned from the large mountain of muscle in front of him to the battered, defeated, helpless and scared human in tattered clothes off to the sidelines of the battlefield. He hadn't moved from his vaguely-sheltered hiding spot, and was watching the conversation between the two with just as much intent as the rest of his team, regardless of the language barrier. The surprise from the event slowly waned from his expression. "I am. Why?"

Most wild Pokémon were extremely fond of their freedom and hated being taken from their habitats by humans initially. But to see Pokémon such as the blue-furred animal standing before him, and five other, clearly devoted beasts all fighting tooth-and-nail against hundreds, thousands of winged nightmares, all for the sake of this one human cowering pathetically in the corner wrote, in clear fonts, entire novels about their loyalty to him. This human was clearly doing _something_ right. It confirmed legends he had heard from others who had seen other Pokémon fight for other humans, while looking absolutely, genuinely elated to perform every back flip the human demanded and receive the praise for doing so. Having never seen it himself, he had always thought that the stories were fake; lies spun by his enemies to entice him into trying to join a human and leaving the Cave for some reason. Having seen it himself now, it was all true, and then some.

"From one fighter to another," he whispered, leaning in close to Lucario. Normally he wouldn't give his rivals the time of day, but having seen such a fable for himself, he was simply too moved to not say anything for their defence. "We didn't do this for you. We did it for us." Lucario was confused by the hushed statement, but continued listening. "Those Golbat were always killing us and eating us. They were weak alone, but they outnumbered every one of their natural prey by six-to-one, and they would always overwhelm and eat whatever target they were after one by one. For years and years. We couldn't stop them; they would always fly out of our reach if too many got close. Then, you six came along and gave us a chance to stop it, to change it, in a single night – initially we all thought you were just more fodder for them, but after seeing them writhe and squirm in that gaseous cloud you made, we knew, you were something. Just from how many bats you've all slain, I can tell, they won't be anything more than a nuisance to us, and you all have our eternal gratitude for that." He raised himself back up, getting another good look at the sorry-looking human. "That human…what do you call him?"

Lucario hesitated from the question, unsure of what the Machoke meant exactly. "Trained Pokémon like myself call their respective humans 'Master' or 'Trainer', although to say any human owns any Pokémon is unfair to both ends; it's only out of respect that we call them by their titles. But our particular human…" he paused slightly. Saying his Master's human name always reminded him of the day when he hatched out of his egg in Celestic Town. It was the best day of his life. "He calls himself 'Joshua'."

_What an ugly name_, the Machoke thought, having heard a real human's name for the first time. "That 'Joshua' human of yours is just as important to us as he is to you, I promise. He's given us a reason to not worry about where to sleep at night. You have my word that none made of flesh will bring him to any harm." Lucario suddenly didn't like where this conversation was going. "But, with the Golbat incapacitated, that leaves the question of who will have priority in the Caves…the 'Alpha species', if you will." The purple giant suddenly thrust both his hands forward, painfully gripping the jackal's shoulders, causing him to yip from the sudden sparks of pain flying from his left shoulder. "This is nothing personal. Just dominance." And with a simple twist, Lucario was sent flying over the Machoke's shoulder, in a watered-down impersonation of its own Submission attack. He purposely held back, out of respect for the trained Pokémon, but with that single spin, the war on Victory Road's main floor was revitalized into a completely different monster: the Machoke and Machamp fought the durable Graveler and Golem, while the numerous Medicham skilfully managed to quell both with their dual types. The free-for-all for control over Victory Road had begun.

Honchkrow retook the skies, suddenly feeling vulnerable surrounded on all sides by moving rocks. The others, quickly getting over the initial shock of the seemingly peaceful Machoke just pick up and toss Lucario like a stone, took to fight once again. Luxray and Torterra knew that this time they were going to have a much easier time than against their earlier flying opponents – especially Torterra, still feeling his skin bleed from the hundreds of Air Cutters splitting the wind earlier – but, with their bodies taxed to their limit against opponents far stronger than the bats, the outcome was beyond any of them: neither the psychic Golduck, the optimistic Torterra, nor the pessimistic Honchkrow knew how round two was going to end.

The pleasantly cool air from the earlier Haze had all but blown away at this point – the general stiffness of combat replaced the refreshing wind, and the heat began to grate on their psyches again. The air was not occupied by thousands of beating wings, and every inch of their personal space was not constantly invaded by coarse bat-hair and huge jaws with violent incisors; there was room to breathe, thankfully. Their opponents were all locked to the ground, which made aiming and just generally fighting _much_ easier – if he distanced himself from his allies well enough, Torterra could rock his enemy's world with Earthquake again and again until he convinced them to stop – and their numbers were at least numerable, but even with the improved conditions, the battle's conclusion was too far beyond any of their foresight.

Luxray felt less guilty about not being able to use his Electric attacks, now that they were no longer fighting anything with wings (which wasn't totally true: the remaining bats knew that the fight was lost, but they fought anyway, to appease their own hunger for flesh. And they were _fighters_: they handled themselves expertly, or desperately, or both, in the free-for-fall combat, unhindered by the confusion of their entire camp all attacking at once), but he was terrified of fighting those outright frightening Rock-types; coupled with the way they blindsided him earlier in the day and gave him his injury, he avoided them as if his life depended on it. Even his Thunder Fang attack would be useless against their stone exteriors, and his claws could barely scratch their 'skin', much less knock them out. But the fleshy Machoke and Medicham were ripe to fight; they weren't nearly as frail as the Golbat and were thus too strong to outright kill with a single chomp or cut, but with enough effort, one attack could at least paralyse them into stopping.

Golduck was still exhausted from the previous fights – and, well, the whole cave in general – but she held all the cards in this new battle. Any Rock-type she encountered was met with a powerful strike of water, and any Fighting-type that got to close found its arms unwilling to cooperate as she willed their bodies to dance for her. And unlike with the bats, she finally had a chance to start working her arms into the battle with her advanced Rock Smash move: true to its name, the Graveler would crumble into comas, if they weren't outright killed, from a strike of her technologically supported arms. Medicham were sparse in number, but they were the most dangerous of fighters in the entire area: having mastered both mind and body with their dual-types, they were by far the most difficult to put down. She actually had to put an _effort _into subduing them.

Flareon wasn't fond of this game, not anymore. Her throat was getting raw from spewing up so much fire all the time (although on the bright side, she didn't taste the Smog anymore), although fighting her opponents with her body was _hilarious_ to her: Machoke and Graveler were powerful Pokémon, physically, but, despite her size, she packed even more punch than the body-builders did thanks to the machine in her neck. More than once a larger Pokémon tried to pick up her smaller body and toss it away; instead of raising her body temperature to fantastic highs, she would grab the offender by the wrist with her teeth, and proceed to vault _them _over _her_. What she couldn't roast with her flames, she'd toss out of the way by simply ramming everything she had into her target. It was great watching the expression of the larger Pokémon when something that came up to their calves outmatched their muscles.

This was much more preferred than fighting Golbat, Torterra thought. His tired jaw got some rest, since his Crunch wasn't so effective against Fighting-types, and biting into stone wasn't…smart. So instead, the Grass-half of himself really got to shine through, stealing the life-force from every rival Pokémon that got caught in his snares. Rock-types were particularly vulnerable to his attacks, since it was easy to creep his leaves and vines into the cracks of their rocky armour, and they were promptly rendered immobile when they did, leaving them wide open to attack. With each attack he landed, he felt his wounds mend and his strength return to him – it was a fantastic feeling, one that was all too easy to get used to, and he enjoyed it immensely. It wasn't long, with so many targets running about, before he finally felt as though the fights with the bats hadn't occurred at all: outwardly he still looked beaten and sick, the tree on his back withered and damaged, but on the inside he felt as strong as ever – but still tired.

Lucario skidded across the ground a short distance from the throw, landed just away from the fight and only a few feet from the rocky wall of the cave. The Machoke held back, obviously – if he wanted Lucario flattened across the wall like a pancake, it would've been done, easy. He scrambled to his feet, watching for only a moment all the Graveler, Machoke and Medicham suddenly turn on each other so quickly and fiercely, the general air of combat reinstating itself into the atmosphere. _I need to find Joshua!_ He thought, panicked. _I need to find all of them…this isn't our battle; we don't have to get involved!_ If he were to trust the words of the Machoke – which he did – then this fight is only for control over Victory Road, which was actually the farthest from what they wanted. He ran headlong into the brawl, specifically avoiding confrontation with any of the others, hoping he could get to his Master in time before any of his group got too far into it.

This…this was not Honchkrow's area of expertise. A huge blast of Dark Pulse would be dandy, but she'd undoubtedly get her allies in the strike, and the attack would only be any effective against two-thirds of the enemy. Against her nature, she resorted to picking out a single target and dive-bombing it, as opposed to getting her feathers dirty by fighting a bunch of them at once. Although effective on the small-scale, it was, to her, a coward's alternative, by choosing to simply hit-and-run her opponents into submission. She grew bored of the tactic eventually, and decided to spice up her manoeuvres slightly by using her Night Slash against the Rock-types. Like before, it required her to get in close for a split second, but it required a bit more focus to pull off than simply getting physical, and as such she was moving slower. It was moderately effective against the Rock-types, and she managed to take a few of them out in the odd pass-by here and there, but in one particular pass she got a little too bold, and her right talon was caught in the scaly hand of a powerful Golem. With a fearful squawk she was immediately slammed into the ground; she tried to pull away again before a sudden Rock Blast from a different Graveler crushed the bones in her left wing.

She had never experienced a pain like that before. She had taken botched landings and poisons coursing through her blood; she had been knocked unconscious a few unlucky times, and she had been beaten and pulverized and totally defeated, even before finding Joshua; but her bones being crushed under the heady weight of stone was a new sensation she had never dreamed of feeling. She appreciated pain, and not because she was a Dark-type, but because feeling pain meant any number of things: it meant to stop what you were doing; it meant that your nerve-endings were working correctly; and, optimistically, it meant that she was very much alive. Feeling _this_ kind of unique pain, however, almost made her wish she wasn't.

Her uninhibited screams of torture were nearly drowned out from the rest of the generic sounds of the battle, but she was heard by the nearby Luxray and Golduck. They dealt with their opponents immediately and rushed to her aide – the Graveler and Golem that did this to her were shown merciless blasts of water until their armour began to peel back from the sheer force, and the nearby Machoke and Medicham were driven off by the thunderous bites of the lion. Golduck helped Honchkrow to her feet, wrapping the bird's good wing around her shoulders and standing, along with providing some cushioning in her joints with her telekinesis.

"Can you fight?" Luxray asked without apology.

Honchkrow so desperately wanted to say yes – there was nothing worse than being the weak link in the chain. "Yeah," she said, being careful not to drag her large wing across the stony ground. "I can still Dark Pulse them to death." As if to prove herself to them, she let loose a concentrated blast of it into the mind of another Graveler, which immediately fell to the ground, robbed of any sense it once had, alive but incapacitated permanently.

"Golduck," he said, looking around Honchkrow's wide crest into Golduck's jewelled eyes. "Get Honchkrow to Master; they don't seem to be going anywhere near him. It'll be safe for her there. I'll lead the way." She nodded in agreement; she noticed that as well. Luxray began cutting a path through the fleshy muscle while Honchkrow and Golduck picked off leftover Rock-types, trying to get to Joshua's outcropping of stone before any more drama occurred.

Joshua felt extremely vulnerable watching the battle; there was literally nothing protecting him from the flying fists and rocks, and in his condition he couldn't even run away if a Pokémon were to suddenly take an interest in him. His eyes fearfully locked onto the eyes of one of the wild Pokémon on more than one occasion, but every time they did, they would ignore him and resume the battle royale, as if they hadn't even seen him standing there. Matter of fact, he could swear some of the Pokémon – the ones with flesh – were actually going out of their way to _protect_ him, as silly as the idea was. A Graveler would wander too close into his 'sheltered' space, and it was met with a fierce blow from a Fighting-type and sent on its way. This whole ordeal was just far too surreal to understand for him.

He wished he knew what the time was exactly. The only thing he had to go by was the large window in the cave's wall, and all it told him was that it was night time. He'd been awake for maybe a half-hour or so, and it was possible his team had been fighting the Golbats for much longer than that, for all he knew.

And what to do when the fight was over? The cave's entrance was still sealed tight by those boulders, and from just looking at it he knew that he couldn't have anyone in his team chisel through it. Assuming they even had the energy to try: he didn't have the sense to remove his backpack from Torterra's shell, and if this got any worse, it'd be destroyed eventually, along with all the medicines it contained. And there was little indication that anybody on the outside of the cave was trying to dig their way in – it should've been an easy job for the League to accomplish, but were they deliberately keeping Victory Road closed for some reason?

Luxray, Golduck and Honchkrow were nearing their Master's 'hiding spot', much to Honchkrow's relief: without her wing to counterbalance the other, her balance was thrown off and it was difficult to walk, much less keep up an offensive against the others. Their progress was slow, but after Luxray chewed through his tenth Medicham, the confused human was in plain sight, watching the fight with as much excitement as an infant. "We're nearly there," Golduck said, assuredly yet redundantly; Honchkrow was lame, not blind.

Torterra had taken to keeping his ground nearby his Master, making sure that no harm came to the human under his eye. As much fun as absorbing the life from anything that got too close was, his energy was beginning to waver; he wouldn't be able to keep up his Giga Drain forever. He was never fond of how the technique healed all his physical wounds, but did nothing to curb his exhaustion, which he found sort of contradictory to its primary purpose. Flareon was nearby as well, though farther into the battle than he would've preferred – although she was clearly enjoying it, beating all the Fighting-types at their own game with little effort.

Lucario was still wading through the shallow pool of unconscious (and in the case of the hundreds of bats, dead) bodies, trying his absolute hardest to find his Master, although his plan didn't really extend any farther from that; since Joshua couldn't speak Lucario's language, he couldn't exactly have the human recall all his Pokémon from the fight, and with the Machoke's throw disorienting him, he had no idea where the rest of his team were hiding in the battle, so it would be ill-advised to go in blind and find them himself. Eventually Joshua came into view, and he was relieved that he found him as soon as he did.

Five of his six Pokémon were accounted for; Flareon wasn't in his line of sight, but he trusted that she was capable of taking care of herself, though he couldn't stop himself from worrying. And Honchkrow looked terrible, even more than she did when she was poisoned. Her left wing was horribly mangled and misshapen, and he could see the skin from where she was missing a load of feathers because of it. She was leaning on Golduck for support – _what a peculiar sight_, Joshua thought, _I thought they couldn't get along on anything_ – and was limping along slowly. But she was making it, thanks to Golduck and Luxray supporting her. If he could just get to the bag on Torterra's tree…well, broken bones were a bit out of his league, even with his medicines, but he could at least dull her pain. Maybe he could try making his way over –

A thud resounded in the air behind him, a slight vibration going through the ground from something heavy landing nearby. He turned around to see that a Graveler had landed awfully close, having been thrown a fair distance from a Medicham's Hi Jump Kick. The crack in its stony skin was obvious, and it was clearly in pain, but it wasn't unconscious. Refusing to be daunted by the Herculean blow to its skull, it quickly scrambled to its feet, prepping itself to get back into the fray.

As it stood back up, it got a look at Joshua, and was at first a little surprised by the human only standing a few feet away from it. The fleshy Pokémon seemed determined to protect this human, but it didn't understand why – they owed the human for being the catalyst to the Golbat's downfall, it understood that much, but since Graveler were not ever pursued by the bats, they were insensitive to the Machoke's and Medicham's feelings towards the flying menaces. In fact, they only joined in defeating the Golbat for themselves: if the Golbat were dethroned as rulers of Victory Road, then that'd be their chance to usurp it, so it was a decision with weight in their favour to make. Regardless, the Graveler had no attachment to this human. Quite the opposite, it immediately figured: if this human were destroyed, then it'd deliver a blow to the flesh's willingness to fight.

Joshua had no time to react once the Graveler scrambled to its feet. It swung with all four arms, clamping securely around the human's body, neck to foot, with only his head still free to move about. The Graveler lifted the human off the ground, appraising its 'trophy' before crushing it like a berry. Aside from the blinding pain from his injuries, Joshua was scared stiff: he couldn't find the courage to scream, much less resist, although his body had no problem relieving itself once it was raised into the air and Joshua had a chance to stare well into the Graveler's milky white eyes, judging from the sudden dampness around his legs. At least he didn't have to use the washroom anymore.

"Joshua!" they each yelled reflexively, seeing their Master being toyed with by the Graveler that had its guillotine grip on him. Honchkrow and Golduck immediately began to use their Dark Pulse and Psychics respectively, but suddenly pulled back, realizing that their Master would definitely be caught in the blast at that range. Luxray, pissed at the cocky brevity of the monster, dashed in to handle it himself; the only thing he had that was any good against Rock-types was the pathetic Cut, but if he had to, he'd Cut the Graveler down pebble by pebble if he had to. But he didn't get the chance: Lucario, who was facing the Graveler's back, immediately ran as fast as his agile-yet-weak legs could carry him, and delivered a quick Close Combat to the back of the boulder's armour. The strike was quick but fierce: the Graveler released its grip on the human and fell forward, knocked clean out from the attack.

The four rushed to his side quickly, wasting no further time – Honchkrow, even with her disability, practically broke into an anxious sprint – to make sure that Joshua was okay. He checked his body over with his good hand: no further injuries from what he could see, aside from some small bruises from the titan's grip on his body. "Lucario, thank you," he said, his voice jittery with fear. He really thought he was going to die that time. "All of you, thank you. That was a little too close for comfort." He counted the Pokémon standing in a small semi-circle around him – two were missing, but only one of them should have been. "Where is Torterra?"

He turned his eyes back to where he last saw Torterra, off to his right a little. He was still there, but his body was stiff and he was mostly as still as a statue, save for the 'tree' on his back, which was rustling softly from some vibrations coming from the turtle. From his angle Joshua didn't have a very good perspective on Torterra's face, but from what he could see, there was a look of…he couldn't describe it immediately. 'Anger' would be a little too soft to describe the expression; his face was contorted, his blooded teeth clenched furiously together, his eyes narrowed to a tunnel so that he could focus explicitly on whatever he was staring at. His gums were beginning to bleed from how hard he was grinding his teeth together. Joshua had never seen Torterra quite this angry before.

The rustling of the leaves in Torterra's 'tree' was beginning to intensify quickly, and a light green aura was beginning to surround the turtle. Joshua immediately realized what Torterra was doing: it happened every time: the light aura, the leaves rustling, the odd stillness in his movement – Torterra obviously decided that now was a good time to use Leaf Storm.

"Luxray!" Joshua said quickly, turning to the lion in a panic. "Go find Flareon and bring her here! Quick! Go, go!" he shouted, waving his good arm towards the battle, trying to get Luxray to leave. The lion didn't need a second hint, and was off like a shot in the melee, desperate to find Flareon before they were both caught in the Storm.

Torterra was too focused on the brunt of the battle to see Luxray dash in recklessly, and he had forgotten about Flareon totally. All that mattered to him was that one of them – one of those _filthy, ungrateful, Trainer-less beasts_ – had purposely gone out of their way to attack his Master. Joshua. His family – his brother! One of them put their _hands_, if they even had the audacity to _call_ them hands, on his Master, and threatened his very _life_ with them. Joshua – the humans in general didn't usually have the ability to stand up to the physical abilities of a Pokémon, but to attack a _wounded_ one was…it was too detestable to even think up an appropriate word to describe it!

This whole mess began because one of those…_mongrels_ had laid their fangs upon his flesh. Given the time – a whole lot of it – Torterra would've been able to forgive the action. The Golbat was hungry, and Joshua was simply unlucky, given how many other Trainers were in Victory Road at the time. It was survival; he could understand the action and the logic behind it, and assuming Joshua survived the attack, he could've related to the Golbat's predicament. But, not _nearly _enough time had elapsed to even _begin_ thinking about forgiving the winged rat. And then they had spent five _horrible_ days in this _Arceus-damned _cave, just trying to survive and get to the entrance in one piece. And when they finally _do_ get to the end of the pit, their exit is blocked off! And _then_ they had to fight thousands of bats all at once, and after _that_ they had to fight the much-hardier land-dwellers, and then one of them directly _threatened_ his Master, and after all they've been through…!

Needless to say, blowing them up would be satisfying.

The vibrations from his body began to intensify to such a point that it began to hurt his bones and muscles; the 'tree' was beginning to sway in an imaginary hurricane; and the light-green aura had deepened to a more threatening green, which was directly related to how pent-up the Storm was before releasing it. Eventually, he felt that the justice he had prepared for them was appropriate enough: bending forward, tensing each of his knees, the Storm was finally unleashed from his core.

The energy to 'charge' a Leaf Storm was built up in the Pokémon's body, and was unleashed through some medium that was unique to the Pokémon that was using it. For Pokémon like Venusaur and Torterra, it was the plants on their back. Each branch on the 'tree' bent and twisted and contorted freakishly under the sudden strain as all of Torterra's strength came rushing out in one torrent. The air was filled with a violent wind emanating from Torterra's shell, shooting forward into the crowd of raging Pokémon before him, brushing Fighting-type and Rock-type alike away from the sudden gust of raw power like they were blades of grass. Soon accompanied by the wind were leaves – hundreds of thousands of leaves that seemingly came from nowhere; after all, the leaves on Torterra's 'tree' were sparse from the past fights, and he couldn't have just 'regenerated' them all on such a massive scale so quickly…could he?

The leaves were very small, but each of their edges were barbed very slightly, to catch onto their pray in an attempt to draw them into the body of the Storm. They filled and swirled in the air, dicing through the tough skin of the Machoke and Medicham as if they were made of paper. To say nothing of the vulnerable Graveler and Golem: the leaves had no trouble slipping between the cracks in their rocks, slicing open their sensitive skin and spilling their blood all across the ground (if it didn't pool under their armour). Blood soon accompanied the naturally minty smell of the leaves as the sediment was drenched with it.

The wind spun like a tornado, sucking in any Pokémon that attempted to escape it and punishing them with more razor-sharp leaves across their exposed flesh. There were very few that managed to avoid the initial blast of the Storm, and even then, they had difficulty _staying_ out because of the tornado constantly shucking in the surrounding wind at incredible speeds. The only safe area in the battleground was directly behind Torterra, which Joshua's group had the sense to move to once they realized what was about to happen.

Luxray was caught dead-centre of the Storm, in his frantic search for Flareon. His fur offered little protection against the violent nature, and he could feel the blood in his legs and sides begin to seep between the patches of fur that the leaves cleaved clean off. Flareon wasn't too far from the centre of the Storm herself: she had huddled herself into a defensive ball, raising her body temperature in an effort to incinerate any of the leaves before they had a chance to harm her, but the constant stinging pain was too distracting to her. She had never lost a fight to a Grass-type before – the knowledge that she could very well _die_ from one was perturbing to her, alongside absolutely terrifying.

"Flareon!" Luxray managed to shout above the powerful wind and the rushing leaves. She recognized that voice! She lifted her head from her position and look around, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. "Behind you!" he shouted again, and she sprang to her feet, cautious of her already-present wounds.

"Luxray?!" she shouted back, hope and anger mixed together in her voice to make a very confused bark. "Did you just walk into the Storm?!"

"Master's orders!" he roared back. If there was any humour in his statement, it was lost to the winds. "We need to get out of here!"

"Big words!" she replied, though she felt empowered just from Luxray standing next to her. "Try to get out near Torterra; the Storm's pull will be weakest there!" She began to lead the way, the warm air permeating from her body providing a very slight shield around them – not enough to curb the leaves' trajectory, but any help was better than none at all.

Outside the Storm, the others were watching in fearful awe of Torterra and his constant output. Usually when he used Leaf Storm it would only last a few seconds at a time, probably because doing it weakens him the longer he did it. But he'd been keeping up the Storm for a whole minute now, and he showed no signs of stopping or even slowing in the slightest. From their position, they couldn't see his face, but when he finally unleashed the fury of the Storm on their enemies, his expression had an intense focus, as if he were putting all his pent-up rage into this one shot.

Before, each time Toterra used the attack, it was in small, enclosed, controlled bursts in local areas. The Storm was still incredibly powerful and would decimate anyone caught in it, but it never had enough strength or size to threaten pulling in any human or innocent off to the sides of the battle. This Storm, though, occupied nearly the whole cave floor, and the cyclone of raw power and foliage nearly reached all the way up to the ceiling. Joshua could see his shirt and pants ruffle in the wind towards the attack, and he could feel a weak force tug at his shoes, trying to yank them off his feet and into the wreckage. There was no reason for him to worry about being pulled into the Storm from his position, but the very fact that it was so huge and had enough pull to even reach him at all terrified him.

He could see the fear in his other Pokémon as well: looking into their eyes, they were just as surprised and fearful of the attack as he was. It was very rare for Torterra to get so infuriated over anything, but when he did, his actions were so destructive that they even shook Honchkrow down to her core. Joshua was re-evaluating his command to Luxray to go get Flareon – this Storm was above anything Torterra had ever mustered previously, and there was a very real possibility that they were both mutilated by the thousands of tiny barbs constantly stinging their skin.

Inside the Storm, anyone and everyone were scrambling desperately to escape the torrential wind and leaves; the Machoke and Machamp, and any Graveler and Golem that hadn't already died, were on their bellies, digging into the tough earth with their hands and claws and were trying to crawl their way to safety. The Medicham all huddled close together, and with their additive telekinesis they managed to form something of a weak shield around their bodies, but it required too much focus for them to do anything else, including evacuating, so the group of them sat in one area and used their minds as best as they could to protect themselves. It was going moderately well for them: so far, not a single Medicham died from the Storm, though each of them were bleeding profusely all over their exposed arms and backs.

Luxray and Flareon had felt better than they were now, but they were surviving, at least. As they got closer to Torterra, the density of the wind and the leaves were getting thicker, but the pull of the Storm was getting weaker. Their faces were cut up pretty badly, along with chests and legs. They each stayed low to the ground, like the others that were trying to escape, and used their claws to anchor themselves to the ground, their blood trailing and mixing behind them.

Flareon was in the lead still, though her sense of direction was a little skewed from the constant wind and the razor leaves, forcing her eyes tightly shut. Luxray was the same way and had his eyes closed as well; he had his jaw lightly clamped on Flareon's tail, to guide him when he couldn't see himself. She was going only by the pull of the Storm and the more leaves that hit her face: when the former got weaker and the latter got denser, she knew she was going the right way.

Boldly, she took a chance and opened her eyes – barely enough to squint, but still just enough to see where she was going. Her eyes were buffeted with constantly changing shades of green, but from the winds she could make out Torterra's bulky form only a leap's distance away: his form pulled taut, the 'tree' on his back thrown into a constant spasm with the Storm's output. Despite the short distance, she was going at a Slugma's pace, and knew that it'd still be a few seconds longer to pull them both to safety. Adjusting her course slightly so she didn't crawl directly into Torterra, she shut her eyes tightly and resumed her crawl.

Another full minute had passed, and Torterra _still_ showed no signs of slowing down. Joshua could understand the emotions Torterra was feeling – hell, if he ever ran into that mugger from Route 215 again, he wouldn't be sure if he could restrain himself for threatening him and his family in the past (and that damn Pikachu would be getting a huge punt, that's for sure) – but it wasn't so much the reason behind Torterra's action as the action itself: Leaf Storm took a lot of juice to run, and the longer it ran, the more it would hurt Torterra. Joshua began to get visibly upset at seeing the Storm lasting for so long.

"Someone stop him," he said softly. They each turned to look him in the eye. His muscles were tense and he was getting anxious the longer he watched the attack. "Someone stop him," he said loudly, his voice cracking, his eyes watering on the verge of tears. "Stop him before he kills himself." But what could they do?

Golduck wasn't about to sit there idly and see her Master beg them to stop him; so, she got up to do it herself. She couldn't get too close to his mouth, because she was worried she would be pulled into the Storm (and her water-proof skin was extremely brittle against Grass-type attacks), but she needed to get close enough to get his attention. She could _try_ using her psychics to speak to him, but it was impossible to communicate to someone who had no psychics through telekinesis; she was worried she would hurt him if she put too much effort into 'talking' to him; and, she'd been using her mind all day – she was already dizzy and light-headed from the effort, and was worried that if she did it anymore, she'd hurt herself.

She got up within arm's reach of Torterra. She admittedly hadn't thought this far ahead: how she was going to get his attention without outright attacking him was beyond her, at the moment. She placed a pad on his shell and tried pushing him to get his attention – no luck. He was too focused in using Leaf Storm to notice it; not to mention her few pounds of force against his 700-pound form was as slight as a pinprick.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a form emerge from the edge of the Storm. It was Flareon, and she looked totally devastated from being in there for as long as she did. She was missing fur in patches all across her body; her mane had been trimmed to only a few centimetres in length, and she was mostly a bloody pulp as opposed to being something actually resembling a Pokémon. Her eyes were shut tight when she crawled out of the Storm's barrier, but when her head finally poked through; she opened them wide, searching urgently for her Master. She found him quickly, and her crawling pace quickened considerably without her standing.

Behind her emerged Luxray, who didn't look any better than Flareon did. They were both bleeding badly from innumerable cuts on their skin where their fur used to be. His electrified mane was cut back just as badly as Flareon's, and his face looked more damaged than hers did: slashes and lacerations all across his muzzle led Golduck to question how exactly his nose was even still attached to his face.

Golduck had seen enough. It wasn't Torterra's fault that both of them were as beat up as they were, but it was his attack that did it, and she could only imagine the condition of the other Pokémon that were still in there. Trying to get his attention passively wasn't an option, and using her psychics were too risky, so, left with no other option, she clenched her right pad into as best a fist as she could, and struck Torterra square on the skull, barrowing strength from her Rock Smash machine in her neck to make sure he got the message.

The Storm stopped immediately from the blow, once Torterra's focus was undeniably broken. The vibrations coming from his body stopped suddenly, and the 'tree' on his back stopped its rapid convulsing – its branches slowly drooped, and the leaves still remaining on it fell off all at once, leaving the 'tree' as totally bare as a tree during the winter season. Joshua's bag that had been hanging from the 'tree's' branches had been totally obliterated, it's contents nowhere to be seen. The only bit that survived the trial was the yellow strap, hanging dutifully onto the branch, carrying only a few shreds of fabric. Torterra himself fell flat onto his belly, but only because the sudden shock from stopping so quickly recoiled into his body pretty fiercely; not because he felt weak from constantly expending so much energy into his attack.

"Are you okay?" Golduck asked, noticing that Torterra fell silent and still the moment she struck him. She was worried that maybe she had aimed too low, and wound up breaking a vertebrae or something, but was relieved when Torterra stood back on his feet. He groaned unintelligibly and shook his head a few times, trying to wake himself up. "Torterra, are you okay?" she asked again when he didn't answer.

Torterra opened his eyes – and blinked a few times quickly, as if he were trying to clear his eyes of something. He shook his head ferociously again, trying to clear his eyes and his mind, and tried opening them again – but still no dice. All he saw was a dull black; no matter how wide he forced his eyes open, he couldn't see anything beyond a dull opaque black.

"Golduck?" he asked, turning his head from side to side, trying to locate Golduck. His voice told her that he was obviously worried about something.

"I'm here, Torterra," she said, and Torterra swung his head to his left, towards where the voice had come from. His face was looking in her general direction, but his eyes were darting around the room in a fright, unable to lock onto any single object.

"I can't see, Golduck," he said suddenly, which nearly gave Golduck a heart attack herself. Just what they needed: for Torterra to exert so much pressure on himself that he'd drive himself blind. And there was no telling if it was only temporary, either. "I can't see, Golduck!" he shouted again, this time terrified of the very sentence.

"It's okay, it's okay," she repeated, trying to get Torterra to calm down. "This is okay, we can work around this. Just…here, let's get you back to Master. Just follow my voice, okay Torterra?" Her voice was soft but quick, the stress obviously laced through her words. Torterra was whimpering like a newborn over his new disability, but agreed, and slowly walked towards where he heard the voice coming from. "You're doing good," she said calmingly, backing up towards the group, keeping a disciplined eye on Torterra's slow movement. "We're nearly there, just keep going."

Flareon and Luxray ran back to the group as quickly as their injured bodies would allow them, dripping blood and bits of fur from their wounds all across their bodies the whole way. They were welcomed back with open arms, and were brought into their own little huddled circle the moment they were in reach. Joshua gave their injuries a cursory glance, and right away knew that these wounds were too extensive for a Potion to cover: most Potions simply didn't have that much medicine in them, and a lot of these wounds were too deep for a spray to reach. A Full Restore would probably be the only thing that could fix them up in their condition, but since he didn't have any, they _had_ to get to the Poké Centre just on the other side of the barricade covering the door, and _fast_. If they didn't, chances are neither of them would survive the next hour, much less the night.

Bodies lined the floor from where the Storm ravaged. Fighting-types and Rock-types whose skin had been ripped to shreds, piled on top of the bodies of the Golbat that had fallen in the battle before that. It was a grotesque sight; thankfully, the hundreds of thousands of leaves from Leaf Storm covered their bodies like a thick, leafy blanket, and their accompanying minty smell masked the smell of diced flesh and spilt blood, so the sight wasn't as traumatic as it could have been. Few Pokémon survived the attack (save the Medicham, which all survived, but they were in no condition to fight, having spent everything on their defense) and the few remaining that managed to survive the hell didn't had the strength remaining to make it to safe ground, much less continue the fight for control over the cave.

There were still a handful of Pokémon that had managed to avoid the Storm entirely and only suffered extremely minor injuries, if any, from the attack. Some Machoke and Machamp; a handful of extremely lucky Graveler and Golem; and each of the remaining Golbat and Crobat managed to fly clear of the Storm.

One Machamp – an Omega, judging from the stretch marks on his bulbous arms and pecks, which younger Machoke and Machamp didn't get – surveyed the destruction of the floor of the cave. He couldn't count the number of his own species all dead from the attack; there were far too many lifeless bodies to even consider. Young and old, male and female…he could count the number still alive on both of his four-digit hands. They were practically extinct now; he had only hoped that the Machoke still alive in the basement were smart enough to stay down there. Their kind's survival depended on it.

He looked around the floor, trying to find the 'Torterra' monster that had the power to do this. It wasn't difficult to spot, since it was the only creature of that girth that was still moving, to say nothing of the deep green of its shell providing a stark contrast against the red-brown of the cave's floor. It looked like it was being guided by a smaller, frail-looking creature back to a group that was hiding under a small outcropping.

That 'Torterra' beast didn't deserve to live, as far as he was concerned. After seeing such a devastating attack come from it, he figured, it would be safer for the whole world if it and its kind simply did not exist anymore, if they had that kind of firepower at their beck and call – and, of course, he was feeling rather vengeful for his species' destruction. Killing this one would be a good start.

He leapt from his spot, his hyper-powerful legs springing himself high into the air towards his target. He was going to attack the frail, ugly-looking blue thing first. Snap its neck, rip it apart, spill its blood. 'Torterra' apparently felt some kind of attachment to this creature, so seeing its blood splattered all across the walls of the cave; to suffer as he has suffered; would be a fitting beginning to his own destruction.

A surviving Golem had seen the whole thing from her vantage point just off to the side of where Joshua's group was hiding. She had been lucky: she was just _barely_ outside the Storm's initial range and managed to escape with only a few cuts across the skin in her back. But she had to watch as that weird-looking Grass-type rip the cave apart with his one devastating attack, ripping all the Rock-types limb from limb. They didn't even have a chance at surviving that kind of intense destruction, especially not against a superior type. It was too heart-rending to look at: all of her friends and family, including her mate, killed over something as petty as…actually, dominance over Victory Road wasn't a petty thing – it was worth fighting for – but they had a chance against the Fighting-types, however slim. That…_thing_ had no reason to get involved in the fight, and because it did, no one was going to control Victory Road. Most of the Graveler were gone, and with the Machoke's numbers dwindled to a few fistfuls, the bats would have the opportunity to reclaim their position with sheer numbers. So really, this changed absolutely nothing.

She knew she couldn't possibly fight and defeat that Grass-type and his friends, not alone. But she didn't plan on fighting them at all: having lost everything in the war, there was essentially nothing for her to live for anymore, since she and her mate had yet to produce any offspring. She was going to rush in, clamp herself as firmly as she could to one spot between the rest of the group, and use Explosion, to take them all out at once. Explosion wasn't lethal to anyone who used it, but it left them in a critical condition that would eventually kill them if it wasn't treated quickly. The Golem had a means to heal anyone who used the attack in the natures of the cave, but because of its hazardous use, it generally wasn't a smart idea to use it unless they _absolutely_ had to.

She was going to jump in and do the deed herself, when, from the corner of her eye, she saw an older Machamp tense from his own point and leap into the group just below her. Her eyes weren't spectacular, but even she could read his body language well enough to know that the Storm had hurt him as emotionally as it had hurt her. _Good_, she thought, out of misery instead of malice, _this will make it easier on the both of us. _She fell from her own point to join in the attack.

With a thunderous crash, the Machamp landed just a few feet from Golduck. She wasn't paying attention, being so focused on Torterra, and was caught completely off-guard from the sudden shockwave through the ground. Immediately after that, a second deep _thud_ resounded through the air, and just behind the Machamp was a Golem. Neither of them looked angry, but it was obvious that they each intended to act violently against the group.

Torterra swung his head both ways, trying to make sense of what just happened. "What's going on?!" he said in a panic, unable to see what was happening just before him.

Before she could respond – before she could react – the hulking Machamp had all four hands wrapped tightly around her neck. Like the Golem that had assaulted Joshua, the Machamp raised his victim off the ground, in an attempt to bring about the most painfully dramatic death for the monster to witness as he could, unaware that Torterra was blind. He did not snap her neck immediately; he wanted to enjoy the action as much as he could, and the sensation of the tired Golduck slapping helplessly against his thick wrists with her pads added to the sinister glee he was going to get from killing them both.

In unison, the Golem bounded heavily towards the group, charging straight for Joshua, who was resting safely in the centre of their small ring. Her rocky skin began to glow the telltale, eerie glow, like the luminescent stones but not quite as piercing and the colour was slightly dull in comparison. When Golem began to glow the way she was, it only meant one thing: she was building up as much kinetic energy she could for an Explosion, and she was barrelling right towards their Master. Joshua had no sense to think about the situation; he sat, scared and dumb, about the incoming heavy-set Golem that was going to explode and try to end them all at once.

"Run!" Luxray shouted, practically running Joshua down in an attempt to get him up and move him away from the threat. Flareon was pulling on his pants in the same direction, trying to get him to stand. He quickly snapped to his senses, and, with some help from Lucario, he managed to push himself onto his feet. He knew he wasn't going to be able to run very fast or far, but he had to _try_ – he hadn't gotten this far by his Pokémon's help just to get blown to bits by some boulder. But what about Golduck and Torterra? Would the Machamp just stand there and willingly stay in the blast, just to prove a point?

Suddenly, the Machamp's hands began to act on their own: unwittingly, he opened his hands and dropped Golduck simply, not bothering to set her down. It took him a moment to realize it, but when he did, he didn't have the time to be furious at himself: his mind was suddenly assaulted from all sides, as though something was inside his head and attempting to finish him that way. _Another of 'Torterra's' tricks! _He though furiously, but with another wave of the assault on his mind, it was the last thought he made.

Golduck watched in astonishment as the heavy Machamp, who was in total control and was ready to snap her neck like an unfortunate twig, suddenly fall backward, totally brain-dead, as if it had been hit repeatedly with a powerful, focused Psychic attack. She hadn't done it, though; the thought hadn't come to her in her sudden predicament as her primeval instincts just told her to fight for her survival, rather than think for it. It was _possible_ that a Medicham had done it, but there weren't any nearby that weren't caught in the Storm, so they didn't have the energy or the numbers to attack a Pokémon as large as Machamp.

"I _hate_ using that attack," an irritated caw came from Golduck's left. She looked, and saw Honchkrow, standing firmly on her own talons, though lopsided towards her stronger wing. She was already jogging as quickly as she could from the pursuing Golem. That's right, Golduck remembered now: Joshua put a 'technical' machine on Honchkrow a long time ago that gave her the power to use Psychic, which adept Psychic-types could eventually learn themselves, but, by some convoluted prank by Arceus, a Dark-type like Honchkrow could learn through technology. Joshua initially considered using it on Honchkrow as a joke, but eventually turned quite serious about it, saying that, despite the obvious type-discrepancy, it was a gambit in of itself: _nobody_ would expect a Honchkrow to be able to use Psychic. And, despite her absolute _abhorrence _for using it, he was right: her using Psychic had saved the day more than once; this particular instance with the Machamp just adding to the list.

"Using what attack?" Torterra asked loudly, confused and concerned about what was happening around him. He heard Luxray tell everyone to run, then he heard pattering feet running quickly in one direction. "What's happening? Why are we running?"

Golduck, shaking, scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, towards Torterra. "Exploding Golem!" she shouted; Torterra's expression went from confused to stone-cold realization, when he heard what the danger was. "Turn around, Torterra! Run as fast as you can!"

_That's a good reason to run_, he thought, spinning as quickly as he could on his turtle-stump legs and already running in the opposite direction he was facing. But the Golem was pursuing them – or, more accurately, Torterra, who was her target in the first place. Turtles and boulders weren't exactly the fastest objects in the world, but even still, the Golem caught up to Torterra in no time flat. All she needed to do was stand next to Torterra while she got up the necessary energy to go out with as big a bang as she could.

Flareon was in the lead of the pack; despite her deep cuts all over her body, an exploding Golem was good incentive to pick up and _run_. She got a good distance away from the Golem, and turned to see how the rest of her team was doing. Not well; with their injuries, Honchkrow and Joshua were still well within the blast range of the Pokémon, and Torterra was practically right underneath the dynamite himself. "Torterra's not going to make it!" she yelled, pointing with his right forepaw towards their Alpha. Luxray and Lucario were right behind her, and they each spun to look where Torterra and the Golem were. Their eyes grew wide at the sight.

"Wait!" Lucario said in an excited, hushed breath. "I have an idea!" he said louder, and dashed immediately towards the two of them, sprinting as quickly as his beaten ankles would allow him.

"Lucario, what…!" Luxray called. Was he _insane_?!

"Stop, Lucario!" Flareon shouted at the same time. She was worried about her Boss too, but…what if Lucario's plan didn't work? She'd lose two family members over nothing. She felt like she _had_ to stop him, and quickly ran after the jackal. Her wounds slowed her down tremendously, though, and the adrenaline from running away from the blast was replaced with the fear of running towards it, subconsciously hindering her speed even farther.

_One shot_, Lucario thought desperately to himself, in an attempt to steel himself for what he was about to do. He knew full well the consequences if he failed. In no time at all he dashed right up the Golem next to Torterra and, with two fierce thrusts of his paws, dug as deeply as he could into the rocky armour of the Golem, much to her surprise and annoyance. _And I never miss._

He flexed both his arms to their very limit; tensing every muscle in his body; digging his feet firmly into the ground; and reaching as deep into his core strength and balance as he could, and drawing as much strength from his Aura as it could possibly spare. This was a tall order for someone of Lucario's size, even with his part-Fighting type. Locking his wrists, ankles, elbows and knees, he began to lift with a huge, loud, drawn out grunt. He put everything he had into lifting this one weight. He clenched his teeth and turned his head to his left, trying to eye his target from his position. This reminded him far too well of escaping his and his Master's rocky tomb at the start of this whole adventure.

He managed to lift the Golem off the ground, inch by inch. He could feel the pressure from the stored-up energy in the Golem build to phenomenal heights: she was going to explode any second now. With a powerful heft, he managed to lug the Pokémon a little bit higher, leaning back slightly to get more leverage. With a thrust, the Rock-type was finally, painfully lifted just above his tilted head. He could feel the armour of the Pokémon graze the fur on his cheek from being so close.

Flareon had stopped running towards Lucario when he managed to lift it only a few inches off the ground at first. In fact, everyone had stopped running, to watch the event Lucario was putting on for them in front of their eyes (except Torterra, who kept 'sprinting' in his one direction). The shouting, cursing, flailing Golem was doing its best to keep its legs on the ground, and through its struggles it managed to exert enough downward thrust to knock Lucario to one knee.

"Get up, Lucario!" Joshua cheered, supporting his Pokémon in whatever he was trying to do. He had never seen Lucario do anything like this before; he had lifted heavy things before, but that Golem weighed nearly 700 pounds – much heavier than anything Lucario had even _considered_ trying to lift before. "Get up! You can do this! Lift it!"

The others quickly joined in the support, seeing their Master's enthusiasm at cheering for Lucario in his efforts, including Torterra, who had stopped a little bit past Luxray when he heard the sounds. At shouts of 'you can do it!', 'you got this!', and 'it should be light as a feather for you!' it seemed to work – the feeling of their supportive Auras around them reinvigorated his own, boosting his strength. He found the spare energy to give a wry grin. He had this.

It took more effort than he thought it would, but he managed to spin to his left with the Golem still in his clutches just above his head. In plain view was the way out, barricaded by those boulders from the cave-in he caused. With any luck, this Golem was going to get them out.

He reared his paws back a small amount, to get as much spring as he could in his arms, and then thrust his arms forward with a powerful bark, throwing the huge Pokémon towards the blockade. The air was stiff with anticipation over the toss, and during those first nervous milliseconds it looked like Lucario had undershot his mark, before the massive deep-green boulder seemed to correct itself in mid-air, and aimed itself perfectly for the centre of the barricade.

The very _moment_ Lucario had released the Golem, he immediately turned around and ran as quickly as he could in the opposite direction, in a rush to get out of the blast radius. Flareon realized mid-swing with a start that she, her Master and Honchkrow were each still inside the radius as well. There was no way that they could run out of the impact with their injuries, so she did the one thing she would otherwise feel terrible about doing: as quickly as her battered body could, she flipped herself around and dashed towards her Master. With a leap, she collided full-force into the human's chest; with the added strength of her 'hidden' machine, Joshua was thrown mercilessly into the air. He crashed into Honchkrow's huge body, which broke his momentum a bit, but the throw was still enough to ruin his already destroyed body some more. The human and the Pokémon crashed and tumbled across the ground painfully, hurting Honchkrow's broken wing some more, but thankfully, they were both well outside the radius of the Explosion, at least. Flareon landed from the impact, feeling awful about it, but nonetheless sprinted towards the two, away from the Golem.

All seven were outside the radius, and not a second too soon: when the Golem collided with the barricade of boulders, it exploded in a fantastic manner, as most exploding Pokémon usually did. The sound was deafening and the shockwave was enough to knock everyone but Torterra off their feet. The explosion didn't contain any light, and since there were no actual explosives in the explosion there was no shrapnel from the blast, but regardless it disoriented everyone, confusing them so much they didn't know which way was up for a moment.

Joshua was in excruciating pain from the blow he got from Flareon. He could still breathe, and his heart was still beating, so those were good enough signs for him, but the pain was so intense he didn't know if he could stand under it at first. He gave it a try despite his body's rampant, constant protests, and found that, without help, he couldn't do it. His left half of his body still entirely disagreed with everything he tried to do, and it was proving to be a pain for him.

"Help," he said meekly, coughing away some blood that welled up in the pits of his throat from the attack. "Someone help me up," he called again. Luxray heard him the first time and slowly walked to the human's side, still a little dizzy from the blast. He bent over; gently biting into his Master's clothing and tugged vertically. It wasn't a stupendous amount of assistance, but Luxray was doing what he could, and Joshua found himself able to painfully pull himself to his knees before managing to stand again under his weight. He didn't know if any of his ribs were broken – likely, because while Flareon tried to cushion to blow as best she could, she still packed more punch than a Fighting-type – but either way the pain was hardly tolerable.

He blinked away the dust of ground, getting a clearer view of the surrounding area. The Golem that had exploded was thrown a fair distance back into the cave. To his sides were Luxray and Torterra; off a short distance away was Honchkrow, Golduck and Flareon, the latter two helping the struggling former to stand once again. She was cawing ferociously at Flareon, who was responding with apologetic whines and pleas the whole time. Far off into the distance was Lucario, who was jogging unsteadily back towards his family. Finally, Joshua looked straight ahead – the barricade around the mouth of the cave had been totally obliterated from the blast. There was now absolutely nothing remaining between them and Route 223.

He didn't say anything. From his angle he couldn't see directly out into the sprawling ocean that waited for him, but he didn't need to see it to smell its salty air and feel its cool breeze across his skin and ruffle his dirty, unkempt hair and clothes. There was nothing _to_ say. There was only one thing left to do.

The concept of escaping this nightmare was too delicious an idea to possibly leave ignored for even a single second. Just outside this cave was a hospital, where he could get treated, and his Pokémon could get treated, and all the hurting would stop, and they'd be back to catching Pokémon and battling Gym's before –

No, screw that. He wanted nothing more to do with the League right now. He'd sooner vomit than consider doing anything that involved 'being the best'. He wanted to leave this cave, get out of his soaking pants, get in a bed, and sleep for a few days. Before or after getting something to eat, he hadn't cared to think that far ahead right now.

He limped along, past Honchkrow and Golduck and Flareon, seemingly hypnotized by the fact that he was going to smell fresh air again in just a few more paces. He had walked into this cave from that very entrance five days ago, and was hell-bent on getting through it on his first try. And he was close, he could _feel_ it, but then…he was forced back here. He had taken a bite to the neck; a fall off a cliff; a coma; a sickness that still hadn't entirely left him; a really, really bad drug trip; an electric shock to his system; a turf war; an explosion; and a blood-curdling tackle to the chest by his own dog. Getting out would be the sweetest victory he ever had.

His Pokémon team soon joined in his silent walk towards the cave exit. "Torterra," Luxray called to get his attention. "This way. We're leaving." Torterra had never heard better words. Leaving the cave. He had sometimes entertained the fantasy that they would never get out during his most stressed moments (against his better judgment), but now, the premise was so real he couldn't help but falter and hesitate at the notion. He marched at a casual pace towards where he heard Luxray speak, and followed dutifully. The others had joined in once they saw their Master's trance-like state, and followed him silently – even the loud, brash Honchkrow had nothing to say for the moment. It was time to leave the cave. No more fights, no more planning, no more pessimism, for now. It was hard to be pessimistic when her goal, and her family's goal, was just there.

Joshua stood in front of the gaping maw of the cave, looking out across the late evening sky. The ocean was just as still as glass as it was the day he entered the cave; Sunyshore city was just as bright at night, the natural rocky outcropping making that cute Munchlax form unmoved, its silhouette motionless against the lights. The stars were shining just as brilliantly back then as they were now. It was exactly the same, but its meaning, to him, couldn't be more different.

He stopped very suddenly in front of the door to his freedom, and stared, silently out into the open. The ocean breeze caressed his tired, hot skin – a sensation he had taken for granted all the time he was out there, fulfilling the Trainer's dream. It was practically orgasmic, for lack of a better word. The sight of the ocean and the distant city, the feel of the fresh wind against his form, the sounds of the ocean's waves beating against the waterfall just below the platform before the cave…he stood there, taking in the senses, but remained unmoved, as if he were afraid to leave.

The rest of his team waited patiently for him to finally make the last few steps out of the cave, but Golduck realized her Master's emotions and his sudden, unexplained apprehensiveness to leaving. She understood; it was a big step to walk away from the hell, she knew. To him, it must've felt similar to what he felt when he started his whole Pokémon journey, from the day he left his comfortable home in Twinleaf. She laid a sensitive pad on his left shoulder – he responded by flinching.

"We're here for you, Joshua," she said smoothly, making sure the human understood not the words, but the meaning behind her tone. He nodded his feigned understanding, and took a step, and another – and before he knew it, he was out, his team of six following him every step of the way. They left Victory Road alive.

The Poké Centre he had last slept in was there, its lights just as bright and its glass doors and windows still as clear as ever. He remembered talking with two other Trainers before leaving – he had forgotten their names long ago. He was never good with names – and striking up a conversation with the nurse before heading to bed. He remembered them urging him to stay behind a train a bit more. Back then, his pack was full of medicines and foods and poffins to last him weeks; now he barely even had the clothes on his back. He made it a point to apologize to them, if he saw them again, for his earlier recklessness.

He stood before the automatic glass door and presented himself to the Centre. His half-lame, half-naked, bloody, entirely broken self walked as normally as he could into the Centre, much to the gasps of surprise from the patrons there. That was it, he was done: he was safely within the walls of the Pokémon Centre of Victory Road. That was good enough for him.

He gave his legs permission to fall out from under him, and for his eyes to shut. The last things he heard before falling asleep were the worried gasps of the humans before him and the Pokémon behind him. Somewhere, way, way in the back of his mind, he didn't like the idea of worrying them about his health – but the rest of his mind didn't care.


	9. Epilogue

There weren't a lot of hospitals capable of treating wounds as severe as the ones on Joshua, Flareon and Luxray, and human lifestyles had grown so dependent on Pokémon that the number of Pokémon hospitals outnumbered human hospitals almost twenty to one. Still, each human hospital had the highest-end equipment and smartest physicians available, so while injuries weren't numbered very highly, they were still well taken care of. Joshua had slept in Sinnoh's human hospital for four days now, located in Jubilife (which, unfortunately for everyone, was located on the other side of the province from Victory Road). The doctors initially put him in a medical-induced coma before they began work on patching him up – not that they needed to: Joshua was so sound asleep that he slept through him being picked up and transported the whole way across the province.

His Pokémon were initially to be treated then and there at Victory Road's Poké Centre, but they were each furious with the idea of being away from their Trainer for even a second. The nurse there got Lucario to translate what they were trying to do for them: moving Joshua to a better-equipped hospital they were all okay with, but the idea of being even in different rooms from him didn't sit well with them at _all_. Torterra was the most opposed to it, particularly since he tried and failed numerous times to squeeze his wide self into the building; his blindness didn't help matters much. Without the Poké Balls that Joshua had caught them with and since their genetic 'tags' hadn't dissolved yet, it was impossible to 're-catch' them and transport them to Jubilife that way. Getting them across the province was a chore for them (especially with the 700-pound blind Torterra), but it was eventually completed.

Jubilife City had a standard Poké Centre, just like every other city, but their hospital was there to treat much more serious wounds, whereas Poké Centres were just there to heal the usual basics of injuries and ailments. Because his Pokédex was destroyed beyond operation, Joshua effectively had no sort of I.D. on him; but seeing his condition and his Pokémon's condition, and the very fact that he had a Pokédex on him at all, led the doctors to work first and ask questions later.

Each of Joshua's six Pokémon were treated for their wounds in Jubilife: Lucario and Golduck were given the usual run-through since their wounds weren't too serious and wound up just getting the basic Poké Centre treatment. They were the luckiest of the group: Honchkrow's wing, which she was told would eventually let her fly again, was put in a sling/cast hybrid device that kept it absolutely stationary while she recovered. Joshua, Flareon and Luxray were immediately rushed to the Emergency Ward, where the doctors had their work cut out for them, trying to stitch up their bodies and prevent any more blood loss or infection. Each of their operations wound up being a success, though it sure didn't look like it to the other three.

Torterra was put under a lot of examination as well to help with his blindness. A doctor from Johto remembered a similar ailment with a Meganium, and remembered that the blindness went away eventually, but they never found a 'cure' to it exactly. They hoped the same would happen with Joshua's Torterra; which it eventually did: on the fourth day of rest, his eyes eventually cleared of their perpetual fog, and he could see just as well again. The 'tree' on his back slowly began to blossom once more as well.

Torterra was forced to stay in his own recovery room in the lowest level of the building, since he was too large to reliably transport anywhere else without breaking something, such as the foundation. Honchkrow, Lucario and Golduck were allowed to stay by their Master's side ('allowed' being a forced word, since they refused to move) while he slept. The story of "the unnamed boy from Victory Road, nearly killed with his six Pokémon, transported to Jubilife in intensive care" was broadcasted all the way to Kanto and far beyond; Joshua's parents quickly found the story and dropped everything to fly on their own Pokémon to Jubilife. They would frequently come to check on their son, often two to three times a day. They didn't know what the story was: all they knew was that he was horribly mutilated. His body and face were dreadfully misshapen from what he looked like before he entered Victory Road, but he was recognizable, and at least he was whole again. It relieved them all to no end that he was okay, and at the end of every day, Lucario would leave the room on the twentieth floor of the hospital, to walk to Torterra's room in the basement, to tell their Alpha how their Omega was doing. And despite Torterra's claustrophobia, he was coping well with the room, since the only thing that stressed him out was not knowing _exactly_ what his Master was doing or how he was feeling.

On the fifth day, Joshua finally managed to muscle his eyes open. The first thing he heard was the steady beeping of the heart-rate monitor to the side of his bed – followed by the elated barks, quacks and caws of the Pokémon surrounding him when they realized he was finally awake. The noise attracted the attention of the doctors and nurses nearby, who rushed in to check on how he was doing. He was fine, physically, but even after sleeping heavily for four days he was still exhausted, according to him. He just wanted to see his Pokémon before sleeping some more.

Flareon and Luxray were eventually released from their own rooms; Pokémon tended to recover from injury much faster than humans, and the abundant medicines for them sold commercially all over the world certainly made it easier on the doctors. They were shown to their Master's room, where the other three were waiting for their Master to open his eyes again, along with his human parents. Lucario told the story to Torterra, who grew excited at the mere idea of it, but was disappointed, in a way, when he was told that he would have to wait some more before his Master would be healthy enough to leave.

On the sixth day, Joshua opened his eyes a second time just before visiting hours were over, and was greeted by a Flareon sleeping soundly next to his outstretched body. He considered not bothering to wake her for a moment, before the excited yips from Lucario threw that idea out the window. His mother and father were just getting ready to leave when they noticed his Pokémon beginning to get excited over something. They looked to their son, and, to their relief, saw that his eyes were open and that he was petting his Flareon with his finally-functioning left hand.

It had been a hellish two weeks for him and both his families, so the staff of the hospital was lenient with their requests to stay for just an hour longer to be with their awake son and Master. They asked him all manner of questions and listened to his whole story, from first walking into Victory Road to walking out.

"What happened when you finally managed to get back to the Poké Centre?" asked his father, hanging on his son's every word.

Joshua hummed, squinting his eyes as he tried to remember the details. "I don't remember," he said finally with a sigh. "I think I just walked into the building, then blacked out. I remember thinking that I was finally safe, and that it was okay to let go. The next thing I remember is waking up here yesterday."

"Were you scared?" asked his mother, wide-eyed at the whole awesome tale of dreams, family, war and victory.

"Of what?"

"Of Victory Road, when you first walked in."

"Oh, of that?" he laughed, waving his hand in the air as if to shoo away the question. "Scared? Are you kidding? I wanna go again!" His Pokémon each started laughing at the comment. The joke was beyond each of the humans.

Joshua sighed again and looked out the window of his room, to the outstretching city of Jubilife, which eventually faded into Route 202. "But seriously," he said sadly, watching the sky go from bright orange into a slow dark blue. "I was afraid for my life. For their lives." He motioned to his Pokémon team standing in the room with him, and the small fiery dog by his side. "I was afraid I'd never see my parents again. I was worried that my story wouldn't have as happy an ending as this one. I stared death in the face; it's not something I want to do again, not for a while." He turned his eyes back to his father's and his mother's. "That's not to say I'm giving up on being Sinnoh's champion. Not by a long shot," he chuckled. "I'll tackle Victory Road again someday. Just…not for a little while. There are some things I'd like to do before then."

"Like what?"

"Like…I'd like to take a lap around Sinnoh once more. See some things I had didn't pay attention to my first time around. You know how Oreburgh City has a museum dedicated to mining products and methods? I never visited that. I kept telling myself, 'well, next week. After I get this next badge'. But now would be a good time to visit it. There are a lot of things I missed out on during my first run-through – I'm going to do it again, and this time not miss a thing."

They talked well into the night, burning up every last second that the hospital gave them, until finally, they couldn't spend another moment in the hospital and the nurses were practically trying to drag Joshua's parents out. With a firm handshake from his father (in his good hand – just in case) and a kiss on the forehead from his mother, they left his room and started back on their way back to Twinleaf Town for the night.

Joshua sighed, resting his head back on the hospital's comfortable pillow. He was aching all over and he was a little tired from telling the story and answering the questions, but tonight wasn't done yet. There was one last thing he absolutely had to do before going back to sleep.

"Please get off the bed, Flareon," he said, lifting his legs a little to entice the dog off. Confused but loyal she obeyed and leapt off the bed onto the hard linoleum floor.

Joshua kicked the sheets of the bed off himself and draped his legs off the side, facing the door. He looked up at the heart-rate monitor, seeing its chord extend from the machine and onto his wrist. Pulling the chord off immediately would be a bad idea, he figured – since the machine wasn't integral to his survival, he fiddled with its many buttons before finally finding the power button, and pressing it. The machine powered down quickly, and Joshua subsequently ripped the chord off his arm.

He examined himself: nothing else was plugged into his body anywhere. Funny; he always thought that, if he were in a situation like this one, he'd be attached to a life-sustaining drip, but no, they must've weaned him off that while he was still asleep. Well, no matter, that'll make things easier for him. He wore nothing except the standard thin-as-paper patient gown that hospitals regularly issued their check-ins. That was fine too: he wasn't going to go anywhere cold. With a slight thrust, he pushed himself off the bed onto the floor. His balance was a little wobbly at first, and his muscles ached and cried at the sudden action, but they were also happy to finally be stretched out after being still for so long. After balancing himself correctly, he began towards the door. Each of his fresh scabs and stitches screamed another story; they all refused to calm down after Joshua began moving. But that was okay, he'd only be a moment.

"Come on, guys," he said, waving his hand to his team, telling them to follow him. "We're going to see Torterra. Does anyone know the way?" All he knew about Torterra was that he was in the basement of the hospital; having never even been in the building before, all he knew was that he had to go down.

"I do," Lucario said softly, and hurriedly took a spot in front of his Master. The other four followed behind him, single file, much like they had done when they left Victory Road. Lucario led the way excitedly; he could only imagine Torterra's expression when they all showed up to pay him a visit.

Down they went, twenty flights of stairs. It was a difficult walk for most of them (especially Honchkrow), since four of them still had injuries to accommodate. The hospital staff tried to coax him back to bed, but Joshua was adamant – and he was something of a hero, thanks to the media. No one had the heart to stop him from doing this one last thing. It was slow and it was more tiring than they would have preferred, but they paid none of that any attention: what was important was meeting their Alpha.

Eventually, the exhausted group got to the final stop: it was only a few corridors until they got to the room Torterra was still recovering in. Lucario continued to lead, holding his Master's hand as he guided them all to the final room where the huge Grass- and Ground-type was staying. Lucario had successfully mastered doorknobs in the time they had stayed in the hospital – with a spin and a push, the door swung open, to the dimly-lit room.

There, in the centre of the room, was Torterra, lying in a bed of grass large enough to hold his whole body. He was just beginning to try and sleep when the door was flung open, and the intruding light of the hallway invaded his room. He grunted in displeasure, blinking his eyes open, to see, standing before him, his Master. Surrounding him were his family: Honchkrow, Golduck, Flareon, Luxray, and Lucario. They were all here, and they were all healthy.

Joshua didn't offer any words to the Pokémon, and the Pokémon didn't bother wasting his breath speaking a language humans had yet to decipher. Knowing that actions spoke louder, Joshua stepped forward, and fell to his knees softly in front of his starter. And, as best as he could from his angle, he bent forward, arms outstretched, and gave Torterra a hug. He put all his emotions into it, and it showed. Overwhelmed by the sight, the others joined in the group hug as well. Luxray and Flareon leaning against Torterra and Joshua; Golduck and Lucario wrapped their arms around both; and Honchkrow's huge wings spread over all of them.

They were all here, and they were alive. It was over. They could start again.


End file.
